A Brave New World for Trade
The global environment for trade is undergoing significant changes. New emerging players such as China are aiming to adapt the rules and institutions inherited from the postwar Bretton Woods system.
Abe dissolves Japan Parliament ahead of snap elections
On Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dissolved Japan’s parliament, the starting pistol for the snap elections he called a year early to get over a “national crisis.”
Japan and Russia’s Small Steps Strategy
On the eve of the Vladivostok Summit, should we expect any significant progress in the laborious rapprochement between Japan and Russia?
France and Japan in Africa: a Promising Partnership
If some African countries are on their way to achieving dynamic economic growth, many are also still struggling with a lack of economic and social infrastructure, latent governance issues and often complex and risky security environments. In this context, both Japan and European countries, especially France, are making efforts to increase not only their development assistance, but also private investments and security cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The ASEAN Economic Community’s Original Integration Model
When it was created 50 years ago, ASEAN's (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) economic ambitions were rather modest. However, up until 1992 it progressively integrated the economies of its member states.
What Role for Japan in Africa's Security After Withdrawal from South Sudan?
There is still a big gap between the discourse and the reality of what Japan wants - and what it can achieve in Africa.
Japan's Security Policy in Africa: The Dawn of a Strategic Approach?
This paper documents new features of Japan's diplomacy that tends to gradually integrate Africa into Japan's strategic interests.
Political Targets: Womenomics as an Economic and Foreign Relations Strategy
This paper provides an overview of the womenomics strategy launched by Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and shows how a plan designed to mitigate Japan’s demographic crises and labor shortages also evolved into a foreign relations strategy to help manage Japan’s reputation abroad on gender equality.
Japan: The Reluctant Cyberpower
Japan’s cyberdefenses remain underdeveloped compared to the country’s great reliance on information and communications technology. Despite Japan’s initial slow response to the security challenges emerging from cyberspace, this paper posits that cybersecurity under the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has moved to the core of the country’s national security policy. The 2020 Olympics Games are a major catalyst for this.
Japan and France: Slowly but Surely Moving Forward on Security Cooperation
Despite being geographically distant, France and Japan share a number of converging interests.
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