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 rearmed. the politic odd military power. before we begin, i would like to thank the sponsor that make our

programs pop. global leaders, city, delight and united airlines, corporate partners, we would also like to thank our co-organizer, the young china watchers. it is a great flour be working with them for tonight's program. now it is my pleasure to welcome miss vicki lai, the cofounder and head of the new york chapter of young china watcher ford her brief remarks. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. i'm vic year and lai and i'm the head of the young china watch america new york. i'm behalf of the young chinaer watchers in new york leadership team who is in front, we would like to thank the japan society for this amazing opportunity to

host this evening together. and thank you all for joining us. we have a fantastic evening for you. our organization young china watchers is a dynamic group of china focuses young professionals. through regular roundtables and talks with senior figures in the china academic policy and business communities, we provide a chance for engaged individuals to interact and discuss the most pressing issues emerging from china today. through our growing global network we seek to foster the nexten racing of china thought leaders. now i have the privilege of introduce thing evening's presenter. ankit panda special rises in international security defense, geo politics and economics. his work has appeared in a range of publications including "the new york times," foreign affairs, the atlantic, pollitt to and war on the rocks. he is currently the senior

editor at the diploma where the do its daily on security, geopolitic friday and check ins in the asia-pacific region ands a junk senior fellow at the federation for american sciences and focuses on nuclear and conventional force developments and deconcerns and nuclear strategy. pan days director of research for the diplomat risk intelligence, a contributing editor at we're on the rocks rod in addition to this impressive set of accomplishments he has a korea society fellow, german marshall fund young strategist and a carnegie council on ethics and international affairs new leader. now without further adieu let's welcome ankit panda. [applause] >> thank you, everyone for

coming out today. thank you japan society for this lovely venue. not always we get to do events on international affairs in new york city inned a auditorium this beautiful. to the young china watcher and vicki i have the pressure of introducing someone that needs no introduction. we're fortuned to be here if with dr. sheila smith, the country for most expert on issues related to japan, to japan u.s. alliance, and asia security issues in general ever when i'm wright about asia security or japanese issues always google sheila's name next to the topic to see if she has written something about it because i orlando quite a bit from their past writings. see la is a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and works on japan. the author of japan rewarmed the book we're here to discuss and

of intimate rivals, japanese domestic politics and a rising china. sheila has also been the author of a cfr interactive guide on constitutional change in japan and a regular contributor to the cfr blog and a frequent contributor media outlets. she joint cfr in 2007 and directed a multinational research time in a cross-national study of domestic politics of the u.s. military presence in japan, south korea the philippines aming scholarship scholarship before that in a visit researcher at two leading japanese think tanks, the japan institute of international fairs and the university of tokyo and she

has -- she is an adjunct professor never asia studies department at georgetown university. so i invite everybody now to welcome sheila smith to the stage where she'll speak briefly on her new book, japan rearmed. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for that lovely intro discussion. i am delighted to be back in japan society. many ouroff may know that i was a graduate student here in new york. at columbia university and the japan society is where we hung out and get to be adults in the japan world. we came to see films here, we dime see programs like this. we saw the japan society as a home away from home in a way where we got to be japan professionals, not just students that were graduate students but actually to talk to others who were accomplished and who has developed careers in the the

field so i'm delighted to be here and it's a beautiful place. very bright lights but very beautiful room. i can't see you just so you know. i have friended in audience, you're behind a big light but thank you all for coming out. this is lovely audience and i look forward to the conversation. i want to think the young china watcher ands vicki in particular who invited know come and talk to her group and i was delighted to have a chance to meet the next generation of movers and shake hes in the china world so thank you for that and of course, always makes me feel welcome. it's been too long but i'm die light told be back. i have a new book, book that takes me back also because it's a book i began to think about when i was graduate student at columbia. write his dissertation, and i was looking at country that had imbedded in its constitution an article, article 9, that basically said it would not treat military force or military

power in the same way that other countries did or took for granted. it said in its constitution that japan and japanese people would forever renounce war as a means of settling international disputes. i as a graduate student thought that was remarkable thing and wickeder our constitution said something like that, too. not because i was pacifist, but because it seemed to obvious that would be a smart thing to do. but the real question that i wanted to research in my dissertation was how does that square with being one of the principal allies of a nuclear super power in the post war era? how does that square with what we then thought of as the defining configuration of international politics the cold war. i was a grad student at the end of the cold war. seems like very long time ago but it was in the -- that frame

that i went to graduate classes, taught by bob jarvis and other theiri-of-international relations at columbia and the cold war framing and every security class was about nato. every security class focused on extended deterrence and nato. not one focused on asia. i was a contemporary of people like victor which cha, tom christianson. our generation thought why aren't we talking about this in asia, talking about the pressures not only of extended deterrence and a aye lines -- alliances but security in the asia-pacific. so myopically focuses on europe bit was the cold bar and that's what we need poll see terms. our generation came along and said hold on. the dynamics of the cold war play out differently in asia. they -- the two hot wars of the cold war were in asia. and our allyies in asia feel the

divisions that europeans face into eat and west and north and south on the korean peninsula but japan felt it office just offshore of china. and obviously of the soviet union at the time. we come a long way since then. japan was very resistant to seeing itself own military as playing a considerable role in that cold war. it did, however, see great advantage to offering bases and facilities to the united states, which forward deployed it forces in region and the self-defense forces gradually development their capability and sense of mission and their sense of perhaps what kind of contingency might motivate the named for them to defend their country under that framing of the cold war. the korean peninsula, from the very beginning, from the korean war, was the defining possibility that might bring war to the shores of japan.

it has -- it was then in 1950 and remains that way today. its the most likely place where armed force could be used in asia, and therefore becomes the most likely way in which japan would become emfloyd a war. now, that doesn't mean that all of the self-defense forces thought about what they would do in a korean contingency. took a long time in japan for the kinds of thing wiz take for granted if you it? washington. i suspect if you sit in beijing. but thing likes contingency planning or talking about what are you going to do if. the worst-case scenario kind of thinking that this job of militaries and the departments of defense. took a lime item for that -- lime tire for that to become legitimate in the post war japan and i talk about that divorce between military civilian authority over security planning that was very much a part of the early decade japan's thinking.

in the post war period. but things changed after the cold war ended and so the book i just wrote, my dissertation, some of research of that period is in that second chapter, the background chapter. but the bulk of the book is really about the way in which different kinds of realities and pressures pressures pressures pressures and thinking shaped what i think is a significant transformation in tokyo how japanese plans and the public sees the utility of their military in the post cold war era show. book is really date from the end of the cold war, it has structured with different ways in which debate has played out for different ropes reasons. but die walk through one of the early pieces of -- that is so fundamental and hopefully we talk about this later in the

context of what is happening today. and that is sending the self-defense forces abroad. sending japan's military out of the country. and of course it was done in coalition with other partners, with the united states and with the u.n., for peace-keeping prayings but the end of the cold war brought the self-defense forces more clearly into the forefront of japans national thinking about its role in the world. now that doesn't mean that the japanese military is mobilized in sent around the globe to attack people. otin terms of how he looks at the japanese military, few people in japan see that role for the military but they do see a role that the self-defense forces can play

in conjunction with other partners to help address some of the global challenges to security, soyou saw that first in the former un, in cambodia , especially for those of you who have any experience know that that mission was led by very well-known un diplomats with the japanese so it was a comfortable framing for this very first effort to send a self to points force abroad to helpalongside others around the globe . to help cambodia move into close conflict, peaceful transition. that was the very beginning of the self-defense forces for a under the pk o law of 1991. today the self-defense forces operate across the nation, across the globe and sometimes in tko, sometimes in humanitarian or disaster relief, sometimes unilaterally . they participated in the united states with response to 9/11.operations in the

iraq war, very contentious at home but nonetheless that's what happened. they are today operating in the gulf of aden and the anti-piracy coalition organized by the united states but with other partners as well. it's the one place for those of you who like this kind of detail with the japanese and chinese militaryoperate in relatively close proximity . they also the self-support defense forces today 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 jmemory would preclude japanese from sending military but they do it in a capacity that's very different . the japanese today are helping the filipino military, especially in maritime capacity building, helping them makesure they have the ability to defend their own waters . they have visited vietnam at

the invitation of the llvietnamese government for similar reasons. they work closely with australia all across the western pacific on intelligence gathering, surveillance, monitoring, all kinds of complications now of course on the south china sea. they're both maritime pa partners but they are very close security partners at the united states as well. india, another interesting story. united states and india have been having exercises called the malabar exercises. we think of them as exercises but in fact they engage all three of india's branches of the military. japan's three branches of the self-defense for air, ground forces have a strategic conversation with their friends in delhi and the malabar exercises are something that have been organically built into as part of their efforts to increase their security and dialogue with india

. so you have a very active self-defense force in the region. places you might not think that the japanese military would be all that welcome but in fact the japanese military today is one of the most accomplished militaries in asia and they are also very instrumental in making sure other countries around the region feel that they can turn to tokyo to help them if and when they get challenged by other growing larger parties in the region and of course the maritime area is where we see that most conspicuously but it's not exclusively the place, i'm obviously referring to the chinese but where the military operates so japan is , the japanese military today is four or five generations after the end of world war ii is a different military. very professional and i think a lot of people have asked me why did you put that cover on your book ?

i would hold it up but i don't have a copy. it has a sort of provocative cover but more importantly that picture aside, the title is something i thought about a lot a long time because of my work at cfr . i live down in washington as you know, i spend a lot of time there in the obama years and now under the 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? and we kind of have to put an end to this house so the title of my book and the introductory chapter points out the pan has had a significant military capability for decades. not rearming. japan has been in terms of spending investments, military capability japan has investedconsiderably in its militarycapability , without a doubt .

goes back to the 1980s. today it is somewhere around seven or eight depending how much china is spending at the moment. beit slips back to fourth so it's ranking within that top 10, maybe slightly different year-to-year that there's no doubt about it that japan has felt it necessary and important to invest in the military as an instrument of statecraft. what's more interesting is not the re-militarizing of japan but the decision-making japan has engaged in in the last decade or more about how to use that military so 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, threat, coerced or actually attacked japan and i think that's the one place where you see a considerable change in japan's environment is you see two neighbors, i'm

thinking of north korea and china who have themselves moved their arsenal into a position of capability or increase their capabilities sufficient to h that of japan and that doesn't mean north korea is about to attack. it doesn't mean china wants to have a war with japan but both of those countries have invested considerably both technologically and financially in building rapidly military capabilities that undermine japanese security . we saw the most recent indication of that in 2019 when the north korea were sending barrages of missiles over japan and re-sending a larger test missile that could potentially reach the united states into japanese airspace or over japanese airspace so the 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 non-declared

allies of south korea and japan so the japanese have lythis arsenal that lays bare the vulnerability of japanese capability. japan does not have yet a missile arsenal of its own. in other words it doesn't have the capacity, conventional capacity to strike its neighbors m. it has very carefully avoided developing that kind of capability. as stated very much in defensive mode, reactive mode but as the japanese have watched the north koreans developed this capability and proliferate the number and kind of missiles that pyongyang has accrued, it raises the question for the japanese, are they going to continue to subscribe to this idea that they should not purchase a strike capability,

thatthey should not do this and this has been part of the political divide of the book . so politicians have debated this as have people inside the administrative defense and inside the self-defense forces . but that's a threshold the japanese have yet to cross and that's the one way in which what north korea's been doing since the 1990s has affected the japanese thinking about dtheir own defenses and what might be necessary. what japan has done with the investment is engaged in ballistic c defense systems and you just saw last year 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 for sure which will give japan a greater capacity to detect, to track and if necessary to shoot down any missiles coming from continental asia. so there's been a lot of spending on the defensive structure, forced posture to

deal with the missiles from north korea and potentially obviously a missile threat from other parties around japan. the second area where japan has seen its threat perception intensify of course is in china and we saw that, we've seen that in terms of the modernization of chinese nuclear forces. we saw the japanese get nervous in the mid-1990s about china's willingness to threaten taiwan. with the potential of use of force during an election campaign. the real challenge of course, the real wake-up call i think for japanese securityplanners and the us-japan alliance was 2010 against 2012 . these islands in the east china sea have a strong emotional component, especially for the chinese people but also for the japanese and china and japan anhave avoided a direct class,

let's leave our sovereignty issue on the side, by the mid-2010 was no longer possible and there was a ratcheting up of not only government intensity, but protesters, demonstration. having a few too many and deciding to take on the japanese coast guard but that then galvanized i think the political leadership of both countries to a point where they couldn't back down so 90 government forces on both sides, coast guard, not yet maybe operating in the territorial waters of those islands that work while quietlymanaged by the two governments . the island dispute doesn't try japanese defense planning , but it certainly opens up the possibility for the first time that japan might be the recipient of some kind of pressure, military pressure are some kind of military

attack maybe on these remote islands before the united states was involved and i talked a lot about korea, the assumption about a contingency on the korean peninsula during the cold war and after the cold war was always that the united states would define and japan would either be pulled in or want to support us forces to the bases but never somewhere where japan would be attacked . in other words the initiation of the use of force or conflict would begin with japan but the senkaku island dispute began to raise the prospect that this calculation is an accident that's not deliberate necessary ambitions of war but that that kind of desultory dynamic, something we're seeing a little bit over there in the middle east today, that kind of ratcheting up tensions could be very hard to manage. and could have japan wthe

front line of that level of intensity. so the japanese course have responded with washington to shore up the us-japan alliance to make sure the united states and japan are on the same page in case something were to happen and to figure out strategies for de-escalation there be that kind of crisis but nonetheless that challenge with china over the islands really did open the possibility that the united states may not want to go to war in china but the united states may have different interests fromjapan in a conflict such as that . that's what we call the risk of abandonment. our allies don't want to be trapped by our conflict but they don't want to be abandoned by us either. so that became a fairly focused look at japanese security and political thinking about how do we make sure the united states and

japan are deeply embedded through that possibility of abandonment is not going to happen. i think those two scenarios, north korea and china clearly had the biggest impact not only in the way japanese think about weapons systems and purchases and you just saw a defense plan the end of last year that sees an uptick in annual defense budget growth for the next five years, but they also have prompted a rethinking of the us-japan alliance and an upgrading if you will in the dialogue between the united states and japan about how this alliance is going to work given this new asia, given these new pressures and the book talks in a chapter i call reliant on borrowed power from the japanese perspective of why there was more attention being given today by japanese political and security planners, political leaders and security planners about how to make sure the united states remains engaged and it's a conversation between the united states and japan nncomes more and more closer, i

wouldn't say to a war fighting alliance because that's what we have with are okay and that's what we had with nato largely, still do that we get more concrete about what do we do should this happen? as you may know, we've got 50,000 americans, of course military personnel stationed, forward deployed in japan. operate exercise with self-defense partners every day . our military know each other very well. but this is still an alliance where we don't always know how our political decisions will be made and those are the ones that matter. those are the ones that matter if you're in a crisis or you have to respond quickly to a crisis. the application of military force of course is that the level of the highest elected office in both of our democracies and i think that's where you have a greater sense of need for a conversation between the united states and japan in

the last decade or so, especially the last five years so let me wrap up a little bit by giving you the two cents conclusion of the book and i went to cfr, you're notsupposed to just be an academic , you're supposed to help policymakers understand what is coming back so when i listen to american policymakers sitting in washington in these conversations and again, i'm not a policymaker. i don't sit in classified settings so the writing in this book is open source and based on my experience, not on any classified data. but when i do sit and have these conversations and i was at cfr and in washington through the senkaku crisis, through the missile lunches etc., what i thought the book need to be written was how does this work? what is the debate in japan and how does it help our policy understand what might be coming next?

it also speaks to this question about is japan going to change oufundamental postwar organization of military capability, limited to national defense coupled with alliance with the united states. my answer today is no area unless, and unless is important here because a lot of people feel this rising threat perception or north korea and china will make japan change its mind on conventional strike. some people think even on nuclear weapons and when i did the putsch at new york at cfr i can't tell you how many questions i got about nuclear capabilityand would they do it, howwould they do it and okay. take a breath . japan is not about to become a nuclear power . but my conclusion is threat perception alone is not going to push any political or security thinkers away from that basic fundamental remedies.

that limited capability, limited to the needs of national defense and reliance on the us for extended deterrence both nuclear deterrence and also conventional strike is still the preferred method of ensuring japanese security and i think that's going to be true no matter what the chinese are going to 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, ceif we decide asia is not our thing. south korea and japan can go it alone, why should we mark if we decide that we are more interested in burden sharing and a shared strategic in relationship across asia, if we decide to negotiatewith north korea , then accept them as a nuclearpower , it's

inevitable. these are the kinds of decisions that i think will prompt some rethinking in japan about what that means for the long haul for japanese security area at the end of the day there is a catastrophic failure of the alliance to defend japanese interests and certainly to defendjapanese territory . and sure, i don't think the alliance is going to last beyond that. i don't think that's what the us are thinking about though. it's the more unclear areas of how secure japan's political and strategic thinkers feel in american reliability because japan's military capability as largely been created to complement america's forward deployed forces and america's willingness to offer an extended deterrence. should that willingness and, then yes, you'll have a japanese debate over what

options are and i don't in the book try to give you four or five options that japan made you because i think that's a little premature. i don't think that's something that's going to happen overnight and i don't think it's something that's going to happen just because we have a president in the white house at the moment who made statements that make us worried about burden sharing so this is not a phenomenon, and i conclude the book and that you reference the president about his comments about our alliance but when i want to do is and to 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. [applause] you want me on the side? okay. >> thank you so much for that

amazing tour through the contents of your book so she didn't have a copy of the book but here it is, i'vebeen spending time with it e and i recommend it very much . so when i was thinking about how i would begin our conversation at the japan society i thought we could do north korea first or the islands but then i woke up this morning and i had to change plans because now we're going to talk about the gulf of oman which is unexpected so what a twist to prime ministers abe's trip to iran. i japanese vessel was hit by what appears to now be a mine that the us government has attributed to iran. it's unclear which actors within the iranian system, but certainly this puts japan at the center of the us iran escalation that's been going on for several months now. my question is g walk us through the conversations you think are happening right now in tokyo.

i know you spent time with security planners but what is going through their mind and what are the questions you're es asking themselves ? >> this is a quick breaking morning for all of us, we're all trying to say what ? i may be wrong because i was going on twitter trying to figure out what was happening in the region and trying to figure out tiny differences between iran and tokyo and the east coast and united states, it's not what i normally think about out there in the middle east but two things, i think it was a panamanian flagged ship, these are not ships and have a japanese flag on them but the company responsible for the cargo, the japanese company. i've heard later today it was initially reported there were two japanese ships but one may be a taiwaneseship . 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, i see some rather official looking people in the room so there probably a better place

to comment on this than i am is that we don't know exactly what happened. i find it hard to believe that this was something, our secretary of state of course, like pompeo had a press conference in which he seemed to apply it was the government of iran that might be responsible and said it was a setback for prime minister abe to do this. i don't think we have enough information yet to understand and i believe their meetings happeningeither as we speak or into the night or early tomorrowmorning, i don't know still .in the united wenations , 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 wouldjapan make choices about sending its military ?ou

well, it is in the gulf of aden. there is a destroyer in the cdf 151 which is a combined task force anti-piracy operations and the japanese are regularly positioned. i think there's a destroyer in the south and there's japanese surveillance aircraft eight out of djibouti in support of that mission so japan does have assets inthe region . would japan apply those assets? no. and there's two reasons i think that. with a newsurveillance ? perhaps. with that combined task force care data? perhaps that would japan send it maritime self-defense force confronts the iranian or whoever ships, probably not in the reason i say that is twofold. the ships that were attacked, the people have been rescued so there are no people anymore on burning ships so that would be the primary concern i think of prime

minister abe and the cabinet, those people have been rescued. there were not japanese nationals to my understanding . what i think is harder is what does this mean for the mission that prime minister abe went on which is to help reduce tensions, to offer his services as potentially a mediator between iran and the trump administrationin the united states . i suspect that secretary of state pompeo scone comment has suggested tensions will go up between washington and iran, not because mister abe didn't get the job done because the cargo ships themselves offer an excuse or a rationale for greater attention and there is i think the challenge for the prime minister, honestly. now what is mod doing and people from the ministry of foreign affairs? i will presume to guess what they're doing . ngthe diplomatic mission was

very important i think for japan's interests. nobody wants a conflict. in the middle east, especially along the oil roots that service the advanced industrial economies of the world. though if you watch the markets this afternoon, respond to the tankers, the bombing of the tankers then yes, this is going to shake up not only the japanese economy of the global economy writ large so my senses whenever the diplomacy ends up being inside the un security council, japan will want to avoid conflagration that has this destructive slimplications for the global economy and obviously for his own supply of oil. >> changing gears, listening to you speak about japan particularly thinking about imaginal strife and acquiring its own missile forces, one of the topics that came to mind was that on august 2, the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty will no longer apply to the us.

inthe us will have withdrawn and referred reporting the us will develop missiles , the treaty restricted them from developing ground wants uncruise missiles with ranges between 550 500 kilometers and one of the places those theoretical missiles might be deployed to asia where these conversations will probably happen with tokyo . out in your understanding, this is a recent development, the us made thedecision in february . what are the conversations you think are happening about imf and the future and how is that going to plan to the debate you described on japan thinking about conventional strike ? >> there's a lot in the question. let me give you, the history of inf in japan is something maybe the audience may not know which is intermediate nuclearforces , largely seen as a european problem. that was because the soviet and develop this 20 missiles, they deployed it to the eastern europe. and western europe and the united states were worried

that this would make it hard to manage escalation. and maybe couple the europeans from our extended weapons. so that's a little cold war history. at the time, the williamsburg summit the japanese government led by prime minister nakasone made a strong point at the security of the west was invisible. and we were talking about star wars back then, talking about what we now take for granted as the ballistic missile systems but nakasone was talking about inf. why? because the united states and russia, so be it at the time were saying will pull back these intermediate-range nuclear forces from europe and putthem on the other side of the soviet union . who lives on the other side of the soviet union so it is basically a conversation between the two superpowers that was going to solve a problem in europe at the expense of our asian

allies in asia and japan said no thank you, we're not going to accept that and that was a powerful beginning of the ptconversation on the import of this not only inf but the compromises that the united states might be willing to make that would be detrimental to japanese interests. now the story is somewhat different. now it's both conventional s and nuclear and these missiles can do both. they carry both kinds of capabilities. president putin has largely driven n the conversation about the inf coming apart because ofthe capabilities of russia developing . you can get to opinions on this, you probably have a well formed opinion yourself on whether or not we should have walked out or shouldn't have walked out based on what the russians were doing. you could make the case on both sides i think but the

real bun for asia and china and chinese intermediate nuclear forces are not covered under the inf treaty. i am not nacve enough to think let's the trilateral treaty and everything will be great because the chinese don't even acknowledge that inf matters, they don't. it's not a problem, we don't have to talk about it, we're not interested anyway that's otthe real problem for japan area interestingly enough, as you know the japan china relationship has been getting more in the problem solving mode and a little bit warmer. and i think some of the senior bureaucrats from the ministries of foreign affairs for disarmament, the bureau chiefs f have decided they need to have a little bit of a conversation about the possibility of discussion of inf. i don't think, it's hard for me to imagine how japan and thchina could have an effective treaty of their own. but it's interesting that it's rising a little bit in the japan china relationship at a lower level. reality is i don't think our government is interested in disarmament.>> and the

conversation between japan and the united states don't seem to be there. >> they're not there either, exactly so last nuclear posture review and i don't want to bore you with nuclear conversations but you can go back to the obama era and there's kind of a dual reaction to the proxies. there's a strong embrace by the japanese public of i'm sorry, president obama's speech in chronic about the responsibility of the nuclear powers also to disarm, not just nuclear is asian but also that and as you know there's a strong japanese desire for nuclear disarmament. for obvious reasons. but for those who are responsible for planning extended deterrence, there's a little bit of a tricky issue here which is how you make sure that there's not teeth in the american forward deployment to h bolster that nuclear umbrella so china

does this, north korea does that and we have a whole arsenal of weapons systems with which we can respond and that's a more recent conversation on the nuclear cost review incorporated some of the japanese thinking on what kind of specific weapons they like to see us put out in the region. >> you hinted at this briefly but the warming you describe between japan and we're expecting to see a meeting between president xi and prime minister abe. what will be discussed when they meet mark. >> it's coming at the g 20. mister abe went as you know last year to beijing so itwas just the japan china meeting, this would be in the context of the g 20 . i suspect ran just like our two and i a just got taken over by the iran conversation, i suspect that will be high up there because the japan japanese will want to have thatconversation . there will be countries that what the iran situation to be included in the g 20 then let's leave that up there for

a second and north korea. so interesting to me is the extent to which some of the conversations at the highest level between the prime minister and the president have included reference to north korea and prime minister abe as asked not only president trump but also president xi to persuade kim jong un to have a meeting with abe as well. the larger context of the japan china conversation is how can wework together across the region ? this is what i thought was interesting about prime minister abe's trip to china is that i think most governments are trying to find a place where japan and rtchina might find economic cooperationopportunity together . that highlights not necessarily eri or the bridge and road initiative but the chinese but also highlights minister idea of a

free and open in those pacific. can we find common cause, a place where were not at loggerheads, where we may be able to find a constructive balancebetween our visions of n what the future of asia should look like . >> so i think will open it up for questions. there's a microphone around the room so raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question and when you do, please wait for the microphone. state your name and maffiliation and make your questions short and make sure will take questions now, starting over there. >> can you share your thoughts on it pants cyber defense capability in the context of national defense? >> i will preface that by saying i'm not a cyber expert. what i thought, what i've been watching unfold just from somebody who's interested broadly in the security inrelationship between our two countries is two things, one is everybody

who's here in new york especially if you work in the corporation understands that private-sector sourcing of fiber services is really very valuable. and japan has been spending quite a lot of time with nongovernment cyber experts. in this country, in israel, in other countries where cyber is seen to be a pretty robust industry so you see not only japanese private-sector engagement and also public-sector consultation. the japanese of course are getting ready for tokyo 2020 year. it is a point of deep concern because of course everybody in the world 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 so there's that preparatory phase as well so it's not simply what the two militaries may or may not be doing. the interesting thing and i

hear this from people are experts on cyber so i'm just sharing what i'm hearing is that in fact, the more robust forward leaning and creative cyber knowledge, it's not yet in the government. it is actually outside of government and that's something that the japanese government has been persuaded , needs to be a priority for them. but i think our inside government cyber capacity tocould be to be quite frank, i guess maybe i shouldn't be too frank. let me try to bediplomatic in my frankness . we've had a lot of packing. of our governments. of our national security agency. there's a lot here that the united states is working on in terms of the fragility and that doesn't mean the united

states has no cyber security, please don't misunderstand me but there's different dimensions of this that we're as the united states continue to grapple with. it's uneven across our governments and so there is that. i have to say one final point and it's not about cyber, it's about security writ large and as you know the japanese government under abe ri asked the national secrets law which was something that the us government in particular but also australia and others really wanted japan to upgrade its re government security systems that sharing of intelligence and data could be fully protected. there is a push to include japan in the consortium of five countries of all english-speaking countries . that share intelligenceacross alliances . while way, japan was very quick to make its decision on huawei largely for that reason. because the united states

government doesn't want its allies to be using quality products for the 5g network so i think japan is moving in a direction that it hopes will help to facilitate its participation in the five eyes intelligence sharing. >> you covered a lot of important ground with that. will go to the gentleman over there. >> my name is management, i'm a journalist. my question is about japan's leadership role in the asia-pacific given that the us is showing little or no interest at all, that's the feeling you get.i'll give you the example of the tpp itch was abandoned by president trump in japan took the lead by re-creating the

the cpp pt. what do you think about japan's leadership role? >>. >> i should be frank. diplomatically frank. i think there's huge disappointment, obviously it's a huge disappointment and 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 so there's biases that must be put on the table. i think it's a huge strategic loss for us but opmore importantly, i think it's a huge economic opportunity that we lost aswell . and i think what happened at the end of the obama administration is the obama administration officials began to sell it as strategic heleadership and they ought to at home have been selling it

as economically good for the united states and they couldn't make that case well enough and as you know in 2016 both republican and democratic base party members decided the tpp was not good for america economically so will have a long recovery i think of how we deal with at home in terms of how free-trade operates and to whose advantage but in terms of our leadership there's another place i think prime minister abe has been forward leaning which is in the pacific division and there along with prime minister modi in india they have put a lot of heat on the bones of a broad some center for the region that spans two oceans, three adcontinents at least, maybe you know the one over there on the eastern , the other 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 base there is. again, at the end of the day they're all about the free and open in the pacific. it's all about values what kind of asia japan wants to see and i think regionally, sustaining what we now euphemistically referred to as the liberal order . but creating frameworks in which free-trade, economic development, transformation to digital and other kinds of economic transactions, these things can continue to happen across the region not just in countries thathave advantage . i think japan has done a lot lately to offset some of the disadvantages. i think that we have in the region and beyond. >> we're running short on time so two questions at once? >> i'll try to be snappier. >> last questions unfortunately but will take you from the audience at once and address them consecutively to start up

here. just wait for the microphone please. >> the upcoming g 20 summit hosted by japan, all senses thgoing to it's going to be xi and trump. what role do you see japan playing is there any possible media role that japan seems to be eager to play a role with your ran? with economic security, i guess. >> one last question fromthe audience . right up here in the second row. >> i'm roger mcdonald from revitalization. tithe question is the title of this is japan rearmed. the politics of military power. so the question is over the last 20 years, what has japan

done to be read armed? is there a history or a track record to track that? and the second is that domestically in japan what are those policies? what are the two or three the issues r within japan domestic politics that are being addressed because of this? >> i'm not quite sure i understand the second part, let me start with xi and trump and the g 20. the interesting thing i think , i don't know how much around is going to overshadow everything. it depends on what happens with the security council and in the next couple of days so it becomes harder to think about g 20 but sure, i think

a trade war between the united states and china sooner or later is to impact negatively on japanese interests. i think that to the extent that abe wants to shape trump's thinking, it will be on thecommonalities . pr protection, right? the kind of structural issues, rethe imbalance not of the deficits of the way in which people are constrained by doing business within china so i think there's a lot ofcommon ground between tokyo and washington on this and between japanese and american private sectors, there's more common ground , you know ofcourse but often get into the strategic mindset , we forget there are common things. things like making sure that china is not purchasing ch critical technologies and resources, that kind of thing so we have a vibrant and robust policy conversation on the practices by the chinese

that are undercutting competitiveness that are also have this national security concern for both ourcountries and i think there's a lot of common ground . nonetheless the cost of this terrorist war are huge. they haven't necessarily been huge for the globaleconomy yet . they're getting there. they're beginning to see the ripple effects and if you combine that with the iran tensions, downturn in global economy and the whole g 20 conversation will be about that i suspect but nonetheless i don't think prime minister abe is in a position to tell president trump to stop . if he hadnot , if he had that kind ofinfluence on the president we would be in the tpp right now . the president is running up p $25 billion in subsidies to

agricultural sector. we are getting hurt, sectors e of our economy are getting hurt and i don't think that's going to change that basic point of view. implicit in your question, maybe i'll take it this way because it's the summer of 2019 is the bilateral us-japan trade talks. there are other people who can speak more cogently than i on how this will come out but there is frustration in the trump administration and doctor hagerty, our ambassador in tokyo made that clear statement today or yesterday tokyo time about the presidents frustrated with the delay in the bilateral trade talks and as you may remember when president trump went to tokyo and had that lovely three or four day long extravaganza that included the imperial emperor and empress , he along the way pointed in his reference to the lack of a trade agreement and its continued deficit so i think underneath here is what i worry a little bit about is in china he may say fine, going to continue with china

let's get more concessions out of japan on the agricultural sector to make the farmers happier. there may be some spillover effect in bilateral trade talks that will be hard for mister abe to manage. lopsided answer, i'm not sure i did that justice but i can't in the last five minutes give you the full book. how about you buy the book. but i think to be fair, domestic politics in japan obviously have to revolve around how to interpret article 9 . i use the phrase the japanese themselves use over the course of many chapters on some of these issues. i do a deep dive on a lot of domestic politics and why and how they shape specific debates. the political interpretation of article 9 manifests as policy over military in the form of like the brakes of the car.

i don't maybe breaks and how that is interpreted over time has changed in a sweeping way so you goback to the 50s and 60s it was about what kind of weaponry . do they have bombing sites, do they have this capability and a huge debate about the specs of an.aircraft, zero now . f 35, 30 5a, b. it doesn't matter what kind of sophisticated capability, non-travel. 70s, 80s you move into mission, what kind of missions will the self the forces defense forces do. they can do anything narrowly construed as territorial defense. now the security of japanis not a geographical conceptat all . both of eight and , anti-piracy. it's important for the security of japan. it doesn't happen near kijapanese territory so these ways of defining medically what kind of limits need to be imposed on military and the use of the military gradually transformed overtime so it's the kind of the story of the book.

how to limit what limitations are implicit in the constitution what what i really keep the military from doing things not to do so that's one. the second is about political power in japan and i think for people who are not watching japanese politics every day like some of us, the fact is mister abe has a two thirds majority in the lower house which for those of you who know parliamentary systems, he can set the legislative agenda and since the last upperhouse election he had more or less if not two thirds majority , at least people with affinity have been largely a two thirds majority in the upper house, very unusual in postwar politics so the election that's coming in july isn't house election and it's not clear that will continue but he's had a lot of latitude because the partners have been strong. a poorly and it allowed them to be do difficult things where otherleaders couldn't

even if they wanted to have gotten done . so there's a couple of more themes but we're out of time. those are the two big picture kinds of things is what can you get done. what is at the political foundation for getting done and there several prime minister's along the way that have had more capabilities than others politically to move the needle area thank you so much and i will note the subtitle of the book is politics and military power does delve into those questions. i'll say i thought the description of japan's article 9 was just excellent. i definitely learned a lot and i didn't know about the constitutional debates in japan so japan rearm and i invite everybody to thank was met . >>. [applause]

>> always clear featuring book tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on cspan2. what historians, pundits, policymakers, economists, journalists and scientists discuss their nonfiction books. you'll see authors at bookstores, fairs and festivals and on our signature programs in depth and ran two. enjoy book tv this week and everyweekend on cspan2 . >> eric wasson congressional reporter joining us as congress returns from its summer recess facing a september 30 funding deadline read house majority leader anywhere in a letter to his colleagues announcing plans to take up a continuing resolution during the week of september 16. you see any issues with, is not being able to on the federal government this year?