On July 8, 2022, the world faced a shocking news. Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving Japanese prime minister since the Meiji Restoration, was assassinated during an election rally. During his decades-long political career, Abe emerged as one of the visionaries for the future course of Japan. Since the departure of Abe, the strategic vision Abe laid out for Japan continued to blossom under his successors, most recently the incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Please Join Yuki Tatsumi, Director of the Japan Program, as she engages in the conversation with Kunihiko Miyake whom once served side-by-side with Abe and witnessed Abe’s evolution as a statesman up-close, and Tobias Harris, an author of the Iconoclast,: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan (2020), the only English biographer of Abe.
Featured Speakers
Kunihiko Miyake, Board Member and Special Advisor, Canon Institute of Global Studies
Professor Kunihiko MIYAKE currently serves as President of the Foreign Policy Institute, Research Director for Foreign and National Security Affairs at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, and as Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan University. He has nearly 30 years of distinguished service with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from which he retired in 2005.
Tobias Harris, Founder and Principal, Japan Foresight LLC
Tobias S. Harris is a leading expert of Japanese politics, widely quoted in leading world publications and a regular guest on television and radio programs. He is the founder and principal of Japan Foresight LLC, a Japan-focused political risk advisory firm. He is also the author of The Iconoclast: Shinzō Abe and the New Japan, published by Hurst Publishers in August 2020. An updated paperback edition was published in October 2022. Previously, he served as Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshal Fund of the United States and as Senior Fellow for Asia at the Center for American Progress.
Moderator
Yuki Tatsumi, Co-Director, East Asia Program, Stimson Center
Before joining Stimson, Tatsumi worked as a research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and as the special assistant for political affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington. Tatsumi’s most recent publications include Balancing Between Nuclear Deterrence and Disarmament: Views from the Next Generation (ed.; Stimson Center, 2018) Lost in Translation? U.S. Defense Innovation and Northeast Asia (Stimson Center, 2017).