Skip to main content

Lecture Series: Shinichi Kitaoka on “East Asian Security Challenges and Japan’s New Strategy under Abe”

Satellite image of Asia from east Africa across Russia and Pacific ocean.

May 28, 2014

Renowned author, diplomat and scholar, Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka delivered a talk for the 2013-2014 Mitsubishi Corporation Lecture Series. The focus was on Japan’s first-ever National Security Strategy, as well as the restructuring of the legal basis for Japan’s national security.

Shinichi Kitaoka is a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and Executive Director of Research for the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS). He is a leading scholar in modern Japanese political and diplomatic history and has published on topics such as security issues, foreign policy, domestic politics, constitutional revision, and the United Nations. He earned degrees from the University of Tokyo (BA 1971, MA 1973, and Ph.D. 1976) and was a visiting fellow at Princeton University (1981-83). Dr. Kitaoka’s activities as a public intellectual include the participation in bilateral talks with the U.S., China (Japan-China 21st Century Friendship Committee), Korea (Japan-Korea Joint Study of History), Germany, India, and Singapore. Currently he is the Chairman of the Japanese scholars in Japan-China Joint Study of History that was established by President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2006.