The Australian Institute of International Affairs is sponsoring a Zoom event with Paul Mitford, author of the recently released Overcoming Isolationism: Japan’s Leadership in East Asian Security Multilateralism this Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020 from 18:00 to 20:00 (Australian time UTC+ 10). It will be moderated by AIIA National Executive Director and Japan expert Dr Bryce Wakefield. Sign up is here.
The AIIA offers many Zoom events centered around issues relevant to Asia and they’re either free or nearly free (this one is AUD$10.00, which is practically free!). I’ve attended a few AIIA productions and highly recommend them.
To sign up or see their schedule of events click here.
“Overcoming Isolationism” Presentation description:
Why, in the wake of the Cold War, did Japan suddenly reverse years of steadfast opposition to security cooperation with its neighbors? Long isolated and opposed to multilateral agreements, Japan proposed East Asia’s first multilateral security forum in the early 1990s, emerging as a regional leader. Paul Midford’s new book, Overcoming Isolationism, explores what led to this surprising about-face and offers a corrective to the misperception that Japan’s security strategy is reactive to US pressure and unresponsive to its neighbors. Midford draws on newly released official documents and extensive interviews to reveal a quarter century of Japanese leadership in promoting regional security cooperation. He demonstrates that Japan has a much more nuanced relationship with its neighbors and has played a more significant leadership role in shaping East Asian security than has previously been recognized.