Book launchTuesday 27 January 2009
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Japan’s Middle East Security Policy: Theory and Cases
Daiwa Foundation Japan House
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in association with the Japan Society
Japan’s Middle East Security Policy: Theory and Cases was launched on 27 January 2009 with a presentation by Yukiko Miyagi, chaired by Christopher Hughes.
This study examines how Japanese policy toward Middle East security issues is shaped by the need to both maintain Japan’s security alliance with the US and its oil relationship with states in the Middle East. Yukiko Miyagi introduces the historic roots of Japan’s policy, and then focuses on the major contemporary cases – the Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear crisis, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, to expose and explain how clashing interests and dilemmas were negotiated to arrive at policy outcomes.
Filling a major gap in our understanding of an increasingly important area of study, Japan’s Middle East Security Policy is an essential read for those interested in Japan’s International Relations, Middle East politics, security studies and foreign policy.
“This is the first work seriously undertaken on Japan’s policy toward the Middle East. Miyagi’s book is the best work ever in this field, showing how various patterns of Japan’s policy are shaped in the condition when it is torn between the Middle East and the US, with deep theoretical analysis and rich empirical data. Her work contributes greatly to understand Japan-Middle East relations and opens a new frontier to study the Japanese foreign policy.” – Professor Keiko Sakai, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
About the contributors
Yukiko Miyagi
Yukiko Miyagi is CASAW Fellow in Middle East Security in the School of Government and International Affairs, University of Durham. Her research interests are in Japanese international relations and foreign policy-making, Middle East international relations, and East Asian international relations. Her publications include ‘Japan’s policy towards the Iraq war’, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2008. She is currently working on ‘East Asia – Middle East relations’, with a special focus on China’s and Japan’s relations with Middle East oil states. Dr Miyagi is an editorial board member of Asian Politics and Policy (APP) for 2009.
Professor Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes is Professor of International Politics and Japanese Studies at the University of Warwick. Previously, he was Research Associate at the Institute for Peace Science, Hiroshima University (2000-2001) and in 2006 he held the Asahi Shimbun Visiting Chair of Mass Media and Politics at the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo. From 2009-2010 he will be the Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at the Department of Government, Harvard University. He is most recently author of ‘Japan’s Remergence as a Normal Military Power’, ‘Japan’s Security Agenda: Military, Economic and Environmental Dimensions’, and co-author of ‘Japan’s International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security’.