Tennessee-Japan Forum 2020

Registration will close on Monday, February 3, 2020. 

Speakers 

Dr. Sheila A. Smith

Senior Fellow for Japan Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Dr. Smith is a senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, she is the author of Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (released in Japanese as 日中 親愛なる宿敵: 変容する日本政治と対中政策), and Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance. She is also the author of the CFR interactive guide Constitutional Change in Japan. Dr. Smith is a regular contributor to the CFR blog Asia Unbound and a frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia. 

Dr. Smith is vice chair of the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON), a binational advisory panel of government officials and private-sector members. She also serves on the advisory committee for the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future program of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the Asian studies department of Georgetown University and serves on the board of its Journal of Asian Affairs.

Smith earned her MA and PhD from the political science department at Columbia University.

Dr. Yoshihide Soeya

Professor of Politics, Faculty of Law, Keio University

Dr. Soeya is a professor of political science and international relations at the Faculty of Law at Keio University. His areas of interest are politics and security in East Asia, and Japanese diplomacy and its external relations. He served as the Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Keio University for six years and as the Director of its Center for Contemporary Korean Studies for five years. Dr. Soeya was also a Japan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. and a Korea Foundation Fellow affiliated with the ASAN Institute in Seoul. Additionally, Dr. Soeya served as a member of the “Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan’s Goals in the 21st Century” and in 2010 as a member of “the Council on Security and Defense Capabilities in the New Era”, both in the Prime Minister’s Office. He was also a member of the “Central Council on Defense Facilities” (Agency/Ministry of Defense) and of the Advisory Group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

His most recent publications in English include “The Rise of China in Asia: Japan at the Nexus,” in Asle Toje, ed., Will China’s Rise be Peaceful? Security, Stability, and Legitimacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), “The Case for an Alternative Strategy for Japan: Beyond the Article 9-Alliance Regime,” in Michael J. Green and Zack Cooper, eds., Postwar Japan: Growth, Security and Uncertainty since 1945 (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017), “The Evolution of Japan’s Public Diplomacy: Haunted by its Past History,” Jan Melissen and Yul Sohn, eds., Understanding Public Diplomacy in East Asia: Middle Powers in a Troubled Region (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 

He received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1987, majoring in world politics.

Consul-General Kayoko Fukushima 

Consulate General of Japan in Nashville

Consul-General Fukushima assumed her post as Consul-General of Japan in Nashville in December 2019. This is her third diplomatic assignment in the U.S.; she received a Master of Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University in 1985 and served at the Consulate-General of Japan in New York (1993-1996). The Consul-General has extensive experience working with the United Nations. She served as a Program Officer at the United Nations University (2003-2006) and as the founding Director of the UN Women Japan Liaison Office (2015-2017), both based in Tokyo. 

Consul-General Fukushima joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA) in 1981 after receiving a Bachelor of English Literature from Sophia University. She has held a variety of posts at MOFA headquarters in Tokyo, most recently serving as Director of Diplomatic Archives (2017-2019). Prior to that, she held several posts in the Minister’s Secretariat, including as Senior Coordinator of the Public Diplomacy Strategy Division (2014-2015) as well as Assistant Chief of Protocol (2011-2013). She served overseas at the Embassy of Japan in Ireland (1985-1988) and the Embassy of Japan in Thailand (2006-2008).

Consul-General Fukushima is married with two adult daughters.