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Expert Bio
Sheila A. Smith is John E. Merow senior fellow for Asia-Pacific 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. 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.
Smith joined CFR from the East-West Center in 2007, where she directed a multinational research team in a cross-national study of the domestic politics of the U.S. military presence in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. She was a visiting scholar at Keio University in 2007-08, where she researched Japan’s foreign policy towards China, supported by the Abe Fellowship. Smith has been a visiting researcher at two leading Japanese foreign and security policy think tanks, the Japan Institute of International Affairs and the Research Institute for Peace and Security, and at the University of Tokyo and the University of the Ryukyus.
Smith is chair of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and 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 teaches as an adjunct professor at the Asian studies department of Georgetown University and serves on the board of its Journal of Asian Affairs. She also serves on the advisory committee for the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future program of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.
Smith earned her MA and PhD from the political science department at Columbia University.
Affiliations:
- CULCON/Japan-United States Friendship Commission, chair
- Georgetown University, adjunct professor
- Mansfield Foundation U.S.-Japan Next Generation Leaders Program, senior advisor
- National Bureau of Asian Research, editor for Asia policy
Featured
Current Projects
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Prime Minister Kishida Fumio hosts the G7 summit as an outspoken champion of the rules-based international order. Japan hopes to galvanize support and recognition of its own security concerns in the Indo-Pacific as well.
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Japan’s new national security strategy and related defense plans herald a major military modernization effort in response to perceived threats in Northeast Asia, particularly China.
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Japan’s Okinawa islands still have an outsize importance to U.S. military operations in the Indo-Pacific, particularly in deterring a Chinese attack against Taiwan.
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The leaders of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan held their fourth Quad meeting in May. After a year dedicated to fighting the pandemic, here’s what they pledged to take on next.
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Two years into the pandemic, Japan has proven more effective than the United States and European countries at managing outbreaks. Still, the Japanese public has criticized government efforts, and two prime ministers have stepped down.
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The most recent Quad summit proved that the grouping is here to stay, but it faces a number of immediate challenges in accomplishing its ambitious agenda.
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The challenge of hosting the Olympic Games in Tokyo amid the coronavirus pandemic has confounded Japan’s government, but postponing the Olympics further does not seem to be an option.
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The Quad, composed of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan, is not a formal alliance. Still, the group has intensified its security and economic ties as tensions with China rise.
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Japan's constitutional debate is about not simply the document's past but also the nation's ability to respond to twenty-first-century challenges.
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Prime Minister Suga will keep working to upgrade Japan’s military amid increasing pressures from China, North Korea, and Russia.