who is currently the president of the American Japan Society. He is a diplomat with a very stellar career, I would say. He has served as ambassador to the United States, ambassador to the United Nations, and to the WTO in Geneva, chairman of the executive committee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and also has worked in Jakarta, Paris, and London, as well as being deputy director general for Asian affairs in the foreign ministry and director general for North American affairs. So he is extremely well qualified to speak to us today on the changing Asia Pacific, a Japanese view, of course. We have all been focused, I think, very much on the Asia Pacific in recent weeks. We have been looking at what's going on there with a certain amount of trepidation. With a new American president who, to say the least, has not indicated a consistent line in dealing with the problems of the Asia Pacific and what is even perhaps more worrying a leader of North Korea who is panicking even more unpredictable, the area is one that brings in the interests of many other countries. China, Russia, as well as the United States, and Japan, of course, which is the country that provides a base for more American troops than I think any other country in the region or perhaps even in the world. And then we have elections on foreseen or in South Korea for a new president. We have deployments on South Korea and Seoul. We have armadas, which are said to be going in one direction and then another. So we have all become very alive to the general preoccupation that's called for in relation to the area. I'm sure that, Ambassador Fujisaki, you will be able to enlighten us very much given your privileged and close perspective on these matters. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity, dear Eid. How many people understood? That's not Japanese. Well, I stepped down from diplomacy more than four years ago. And I was ambassador to Washington DC, and that was not so easy job, very delicate. So on that day, I said to my wife, now I can say anything. My wife said, no one cares anymore. So I'm very honored to be here today. And this is my first time in Dublin, first time in Ireland. And I asked my friend, what should I be careful about? And he said, just choose the right color tie. So that's why I'm wearing this. And he also said, we Japanese and Irish love our land. That's the commonality. Land, L stands for literature. Many of us have been following James Joyce and things like the Irish literature. So I knew Westmoreland Street, Dame Street, St. Steven's Green, and all that just by. I've never been there, but I've known that. And N stands for nature, beautiful Irish nature. And in Japan, our cities are not that nice, but nature is nice, decency. I think Irish people and Japanese people share decency, because we are surrounded by bigger neighbors. I don't name those countries names because I was a diplomat. But we have gone through very delicate times. And I forgot A is, of course, we share love of alcohol. You have Irish, whiskey, Irish beer, pub, and we have sake. And so I think we have some commonalities here. And it's very great that we have enjoying the 60th commemoration of our diplomatic relations. Now I'm talking about East Asia. Three things that happened in the last 25 years. Big thing is stagnation of Japan coming up of China and North Korean biligerency. Japan, if you compare GDP from 1994 to 2016, we have just grown 20%. It's 1.2 times. We were seven times larger than China at the time. Now China is three times larger than us. They have grown 23 times in that time. That's a huge difference, Japan and China's relations. And North Korea recently have done a dozen of missile tests every year and already done six times nuclear testing. And so North Korea issues a huge issue. So these three issues, Japan stagnation, China's rise, and North Korea is the biggest issue in East Asia. Japan stagnation, Japan is trying to cope with that, and Abe, the prime minister, has come up with financial policy, fiscal policy, and structural policy. Financial policy and fiscal policy has worked to some extent, but the structural reform is yet to take place. It's now underway, if I may say. Our GDP growth is still stagnating, less than 1%, and inflation rate is also under 1%. And now the better part is unemployment is lower than 4%, and stock price has risen two times in the last four years. So that's the better part. But our economy has to cope with two big issues. One is aging population, and the other is the discrepancy between big companies and smaller cities, smaller companies. These two issues are huge issues that Japan has to cope with. So Japan is coming back from stagnation, but it's not jumping out, it's sort of crawling out. That's where we are. China, as I said, has come up. But now it's not as strong as before, the economy's economic growth. Once in 2007, it was 14% growth a year. Now it's 6.6%. And so the problem there is that although they are communist country, but social safety net, like social security and medical system is not up to the standard of many of the developed countries. So if economy stagnates, it could bring about a very big social problem. And that's what the Chinese leadership knows well about and has to cope with it. So one of the reasons that China is taking very strong attitude towards anti-corruption issue is they have to try to cope with the frustration of the people towards they have to divert it from party to some of the individuals. That's one thing. The second issue that China has from our eyes is that the policy towards defense or military is the problematic part. In this 25 years, Japan's military spending grew by 10%. We asked only 1.1 times larger military spending than 25 years ago. US 2.0 times. China, according to their announcement, 12 times. According to Cypriot of Sweden, 20 times. So the military spending has grown so big. And the problem is not only military spending, but the attitude, how it is implementing these military spending. And we've seen that example in South China Sea, military build-up in many islands like Spratlys. And if I may say, we have an island issue with China. It's called Senkaku Island issue. Because we are saying this is Japanese territory historically and legally, but in order not to arouse people around Japan, we have not allowed Japanese people to land on that island. We have not established port. We have not established even lighthouse there. But you've seen what's happening in South China Sea. So this attitude, militaristic attitude, is the problem that many of us in Asia are concerned. But China is very cautious towards United States only, maybe, as we have seen on Taiwan issue when Mr. Trump called Mr. Tsai of Taiwan Chinese leadership accused Taiwan, not Mr. Trump. When thard missile is going to be deployed in South Korea, China blamed South Korea, but not United States that much. They expressed dissatisfaction. And when United States attacked Syria with 57 cruise missiles, Russia did not go along with any other country and vetoed in United Nations, but China abstained. So China is trying to, I think, very hard to make good relations with this Trump administration. North Korea, I think the leadership there thinks that they need this military weapon to secure the country and himself. They've seen what happened to leaders around the world who didn't have these weapons. So I think they will try to cling on to that. And I think the word strategic patience that was used sometime before, maybe not by Obama administration themselves, but to sketch Obama's policy was very misleading. Because when you say that you're going to be patient, the other side will think that they could push the envelope more. So now Mr. Trump's administration is saying everything on the table. This is a very difficult or delicate word as well, because when Mr. Obama said, if you use chemical weapons in Syria, we are going to pass the red line. And if he didn't do anything, then he was accused. So if you say everything on the table, you are sort of setting some target as well. Now, so the best scenario is that the US is putting pressure on China, where China is trying to meet US requests as much as possible. And we have to see what kind of pressure China is exerting on North Korea now. Because 90% of trade of North Korea is now with China. Before, 20% was South Korea, but now it's gone. So they're depending almost totally on China. And so China has some, we expect US or Japan express China to exert a little bit more effort. Of course, there's a limit to that, because no one wants to see collapse of North Korea right away. So we have to be very careful. But it can just go on like this as business as usual, the tests and all that. Now, this is the situation in China and North Korea. And I'll just touch up on US and Russia. US, during election campaign, people asked me how I look at election, which candidate I support. And my said answer was it's like a Christmas gift. You don't say anything till the day. You open the box, Christmas gift, and cry out, this is just what I wanted. That's the only solution, because you can't vote. And I think in that sense, Japan did very well, because Mr. Abe went to see Mr. Trump only seven days after the election. And then what an amazing relation we developed in this 100 days. As I said, November, Abe went there. In February, the 10th, Mr. Abe went there again in Florida, was invited and played golf. Now, in February, Mr. Mattis, the Secretary of Defense came. In March, Mr. Tillerson, the Secretary of State, came. April, Vice President Pence and Mr. Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce came. Never we've seen such relation developed in 100 days with any other administration. So Japan-U.S. relations have developed so close in this 100 days. This is completely sort of unexpected in a way, because during the election, Mr. Trump was saying that Japan is a free rider on security alliance with the United States. If Japan doesn't pay all the fees, U.S. may withdraw and Japan could go nuclear. Now, what happened? On February the 4th, Mattis came, Secretary of Defense, and he said Japan's spending of home nation support, that is to United States, is the model for the rest of the world. And also, during the press conference, Mr. Trump said on February the 10th, taking this opportunity, I'd like to thank Mr. Prime Minister and Japanese people. Thank you for accepting U.S. forces on Japanese soil. I've never heard the American president saying such thing, or American Secretary of Defense saying those things. So it's 180 degrees change. Now, economy is not that easy, because Americans hopped out of TPP, which Americans have been pushing all the way under Obama administration. Japan, I think, will continue to support TPP and follow the TPP, because we think it's good. And we hope one day maybe U.S. will come back. But during this time, U.S. wants some bilateral discussion framework, so we'll be continuing to discuss with the United States on bilateral framework. But Japan's policy on multilateral trade, WTO and free trade area and those philosophy will not change. Russia, we don't accept, of course, Russian attitude towards Crimea or Ukraine, and we are joining European countries and United States on sanctions. However, at the same time, Russia is the only country we have not negotiated peace treaty after World War II because of the existence of Northern Territory issue, which is occupied by Russia since the end of the World War II. All other islands have been returned, including Okinawa by United States. But these Northern territories, so we have to negotiate. And this is possible only when four conditions are met. When Russia really wants to negotiate, because Russia can negotiate, it's a strong leader. When Japan has a strong leader, because when they think Japan doesn't have a strong leader, they'll think they can wait. And third, the relations between the two leaders are very good, or Abe and Putin is developing friendship. So this is the very rare occasion that we can see some advances. And they met in February, and they just recently met in April. And now Japan and Russia have agreed to send a government and private mission to Northern Territories in order to jointly develop the start joint development of Northern Territories. We hope this will be the step towards the return of these islands. This is the strategy. And we'll have to wait and see how it will develop. But this is our policy towards Russia. So I've just sort of skimmed over our relation. Japan's situation, economic policy, how we see China, see North Korea, United States, and China. But all these are not a formal government view. If it's a formal government view, Ambassador Miyoshi or Mr. Takara can say. But this is my personal view, which is not 180 degrees different from government, but a little bit more nuanced and, if I may say, a little bit more honest than government officials view. Thank you very much.