Project
About the Expert
Expert Bio
Sheila A. Smith, an expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, is senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is the author of Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (Harvard University Press, 2019), Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia University Press, 2015), which was 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 (Tokyo University Press, 2018), and Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (Council on Foreign Relations, June 2014). 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 frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia. She 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 vice chair of the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON), a bi-national 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. She earned her MA and PhD degrees from the department of political science at Columbia University.
Affiliations:
CULCON/Japan-United States Friendship Association, vice chair
Georgetown University, adjunct professor
Current Projects
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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is better positioned to push constitutional revision following his landslide electoral win, but his efforts will be challenged at home and abroad.
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North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile during the week of the Hamburg summit injects an air of crisis into an already tricky set of meetings.
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As tensions in Northeast Asia grow over Pyongyang’s nuclear pursuits, collective action is the only way to bring stability to the region.
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The meeting of U.S. and Japanese leaders in Pearl Harbor will be a reminder of the remarkable journey that transformed the two countries from adversaries to allies.
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