"NORTH EAST ASIA: Territorial Disputes and Divided Countries"

Date: Wednesday 18th March 2009, 6.00pm - 8.00pm

Venue: Daiwa Foundation Japan House, 13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London NW1 4QP

Fee: FREE

This second seminar in the 2009 seminar series, Changing World Views: International Challenges for the UK and Japan, looks to North Asia and the territorial and maritime disputes that are the focus of diplomatic efforts in the region and beyond. The major North East Asian flashpoints that involve Japan and China, Japan and Korea, and China and Korea, derive from unresolved conflicts and deep-seated historical tensions stretching back to the Russo-Japanese War and the end of World War II.

The speakers are well qualified to address the specifics of these disputes and will look to the controversy surrounding the Senkaku Islands, Takeshima and Tsushima, and China's and Korea's sea boundaries. The local, national and international positions on these long-standing claims will be considered against the backdrop of economic interests and of the broader bilateral relationships.

Contributors:

Professor Reinhard Drifte is Emeritus Professor of Japanese Politics, Newcastle University. His main research interests are Japan's foreign and security policy, security issues in Northeast Asia, and EU-Northeast Asian relations. His publication includes Japan's Foreign Policy in the 1990s: From economic superpower to what power? (1996), Japan's Quest for a Permanent Security Council Seat: A Matter of Pride or Justice? (2002) and Japan's Security Relations with China Since 1989: From Balancing to Bandwagoning?(2002).

Dr Heonik Kwon is a Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. He is interested in a comparative social and cultural history of the global Cold War, with special emphasis on war commemoration in Vietnam and Korea. His current research involves the political culture of North Korea and the idea of community in the contemporary debate about regional integration in East Asia. He is the author of After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai (2006), Ghosts of War in Vietnam (2008), and the forthcoming The Decomposition of the Cold War.

Dr Jim Hoare (chair) is a freelance writer and broadcaster. From January 2001 to October 2002, Dr Hoare was the British Charg?d'Affaires and Consul General in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), responsible for establishing the British Embassy. Before that, he was a Research Counsellor, heading the North Asia and Pacific Research Group of the Research Analysts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, working on all aspects of East Asia. He also served in postings to Seoul and Peking. He has published several books on East Asia, including Embassies in the East: The Story of the British and their Embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the present (1999) and, with Susan Pares, A Political and Economic Dictionary of East Asia (2005).

To book, please go to www.dajf.org.uk/tickets. Alternatively, please send your name, affiliation and address by email to email events@dajf.org.uk.