Overview

 

Relations between the U.S. and Japan have been supported by multi-layered and extensive people-to-people exchanges, including business, academic, cultural, educational, and tourism activities, with diplomacy and national security at the forefront. However, these people-to-people exchanges were severely constrained by the pandemic.

 

In addition, including recent events of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine and China’s hegemonic movements, such as its aggressive maritime expansion, the international situation has changed rapidly, making it vital to develop and evolve U.S.-Japan relations.  Last December, we held the first JTTRI-JITTI Global Seminar "The Rapidly Changing Post-Pandemic World Order and the New Japan-U.S. Relations Hereafter,” inviting former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Ambassador Richard Armitage and former Japan’s Secretary General of National Security Secretariat Shotaro Yachi, both of whom are prominent experts on diplomacy and national security from the U.S. and Japan, connecting the two countries online.

 

Therefore, as a continuation of the Global Seminar, our symposium theme is multilayered and extensive people-to-people exchanges, which is an important perspective for building a new dimension of U.S.-Japan relations. The seminar aims to reconsider the significance of, and rebuild and strengthen, U.S.-Japan people-to-people exchanges to a new and higher dimension post-COVID.  This hybrid symposium will be held virtually and in-person in Washington D.C., and has invited speakers who are knowledgeable about U.S.-Japan relations, international people-to-people exchange, and tourism.