JAPANESE FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY*

概要

This is a lecture / seminar course which examines the international politics and security issues of Northeast Asia from a Japanese perspective. The main focus of the course is Japanese security policy, US-Japan Alliance, and the rise of China. The main purpose of this course is to give the students a better understanding of the nature of security issues in this important yet volatile region, particularly from a Japanese viewpoint. More specifically, this course seeks to answer the following set of questions: 1) How should the concept of security be understood, and how can we ensure security?; 2) How has Japan’s security policy changed over time, and how has the US-Japan security ties evolved?; 3) How does US-Japan alliance compare with other similar arrangement, and what role does it play for security in the region?; 4) What drives China’s security policy, and how are regional states other than Japan responding? 5) What are the challenges facing Japan’s security policy?; 6) What are the future options for Japan’s security policy?, and what are the prospects for security in the region? More detailed syllabus, which may include some changes in the topics to be covered in individual class sessions, will be distributed on the first day of the class (and also posted on Moodle). Please make sure to refer to that more detailed syllabus.

目標

Students successfully completing this course will 1) acquire understanding of the security environment Japan faces, and how it has evolved 2) acquire basic understanding on the evolution of Japanese security policy 3) acquire basis understanding of the policies of the US, China, and other relevant states which bear upon Japan's security situation 4) acquire basic understanding of security issues and the difficult choices involved in them.

授業外の学習

Apart from attending classes, students are given various assignments, including reading assignments, video assignments, exercises, etc. According to the standard set by the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT), students are expected to spend a total of about 190 minutes in preparing for each class and in reviewing what you have learned. Use common sense in deciding how much time to devote to class preparation as opposed to reviewing after class. That should be sufficient for my purposes here. But MEXT, whose purpose includes "developing creative human resources with a rich sense of humanity," now requires professors to indicate how many of those 190 minutes they expect students to devote to various specific tasks in preparing for and reviewing the classes. So I consider it my solemn duty to declare the following, pursuant to Section 2, Article 21 of the Standards for Establishment of Universities, as revised according to Art. 1 of the MEXT Ministerial Ordinance No. 34, issued on September 30, the 4th year of the Reiwa era (2022): A large portion (120-150 minutes) of that time should be spent on the preparation for classes [doing the reading assignments, watching video lectures, or other assigned videos, etc.]. The rest should be spent for the review.

所要時間: 190 minutes