So I'm Shiro Armstrong here at the ANU. I'm co-director of the AJRC with Ipbe Fujiwara, who you met earlier on. We're moving now into the politics session, political risks in Japan. We had the economics and civil society in the morning and as Warwick McGiven put it in the economic session, the economists have it right, the theory's right. Success depends on the politics and political leadership. Japanese politics is always exciting, but I think particularly exciting now for different reasons than usual, perhaps over the past half dozen years. Prime Minister Abe has been in power for almost two years now. We haven't had such a strong leader since Prime Minister Koizumi much earlier on and he's been able to affect some big changes in Japanese society and in the economy so far, but also in foreign policy. It's been a recent cabinet reshuffle. Foreign policy is becoming quite active, but we have icy relations with South Korea and China amongst a whole host of other issues. And so we have a panel of three people to talk through many of these issues. The first is Professor Nobumasa Akiyama, is professor of the Graduate School of Law and the School of International and Public Policy, Hitotsubashi University. His research focuses on the role of nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia and is also on the Funabashi Commission for investigating the Daichi nuclear accident. So Professor Akiyama, I'll get you to talk for 10, 15 minutes. Thank you very much, Ryo. I'm pretty much honored to be here at ANU. Also I'm very much fortunate to be in Australia in particular because actually my hobby is stargazing. And I arrived the day earlier and I spent the night close to the facility of the suburb of Canberra and took some photos of Southern pole and other stars. So if you are interested in these pictures of stars, rather than my talk, please come, access to my Facebook. And I have to actually apologize that my expertise is not on Japanese domestic politics, but more about nuclear non-proliferation, Japan's security policy. But somewhat I was lucky to think about how our politics goes. And so let me start my presentation by sort of saying, rephrasing the title of this panel, rather I'm not going to talk about the risks, but more about the challenges. I think that is more sort of a characterization I'm going to talk. So well, how do we characterize the Abe cabinet 2.0? I think 1.0 was rather disastrous, unfortunately for him. But he, Mr. Abe made pretty much a constraint. He didn't go to Yaskini and he tried to be more mild. But this time he went to Yaskini and he did not really hide sort of sense of nationalist sentiment, but still he is pretty much successful so far in my view. So one of the characteristics is that his cabinet is pretty robust. It survived the major political challenges. So increased the consumption tax and the changes of interpretation of the constitution with regard to the collective self-defense and introduced the secret information protection act. Then he hadn't had a dialogue with the leaders of China and ROK. So each of them could kill the cabinet. And remember when Mr. Takeshita was Prime Minister and introduced the consumption tax, he sacrificed his cabinet for introduction of the consumption tax. And Mr. Hashimoto, he was at that time very popular, but because he raised the consumption tax by 2% and his approval rate dropped sharply. But Mr. Abe survived with the consumption tax and this collective self-defense issue has been sort of seen as a taboo for the politicians and even for the conservatives, but he did it. So it's amazing that his cabinet is so robust. Then somebody said he could be lucky. For example, he said Japan is back and US-Japan relations is back. But this grand work has already been done by Mr. Noda, his predecessor from DPJ. So many actually US policy makers said US-Japan relations had already been back when Mr. Abe was back. And also the economy was almost ready to recover. In previous sessions, Professor Watanabe talked about sort of a clear trend after Abe no Mix was introduced, there is a poor trend. But I think some people said that grand work also has already been done before and the economy was ready for the recovery at that time. Then despite of the challenges that Mr. Abe actually posed in the international community with regard to history issues, the China made sort of some strategic own goals. The China made some provocative actions in South China Sea and East China Sea and that raises some concerns. And nowadays actually South Korea also made some concerns about the freedom of speech or freedom of media by sort of keeping one journalist, Japanese journalist in Korea for the reasons that he wrote sort of op-ed, which kind of teasing the President Park. Then DPJ had performed so badly that the Japanese people learned the patience with the LDP. Then nobody in LDP tried to challenge Mr. Abe. So it seems to me that he's been pretty much in a lucky environment and they supported Mr. Abe's politics that can decide. But it's also true that Mr. Abe has sort of communicated with the nations with positive messages. The people actually try to trust what he said about Japan's back and sort of a better mix would be put the Japanese economy back. So then question probably which is the interest of most of you, is Mr. Abe a nationalist or pragmatist? You know there are some elements of nationalist. He said, Japan should be back, reclaiming Japan, bring back Japan. I don't know from where, from whom he tried to bring back Japan. Then Professor Samuels mentioned, single regime, get out of the post-war regime. It's obviously to me, it's sort of a revisionist view and I'm concerned whether he is trying to deny the post-war international setting where in which Japan enjoyed a sort of prosperity and recovery from the Second World War. Or he has no clear understanding on what it implies in terms of history or not. But anyway these are somewhat appealing to the nationalist elements of the Japanese society. And then he went to Yasukuni Shrine on the Christmas day in the United States. So my friends in US State Department so much furious that Christmas dinner was interrupted. And they were running around and making phone calls with the colleagues and they tried to do something. But anyway, other than that, that was kind of surprise to the many of the people including myself. Before he, Mr. Abe visited Yasukuni. I was telling my friends in the United States, why don't we judge Mr. Abe with what he does, not but what he did and what he said. Then actually what he did was to visit Yasukuni Shrine. So I kind of lost a face. But what I mean, we should judge with what he does is not about this history things, but policies. So he has more sort of pragmatic policy decisions. So although he once suggested to revise or amend Kono's statement or Murayama's statement with regard to the history, but he made clear that there would be no amendment of Kono and Murayama's statements. Although recently his friends are suggesting that overwrite these statements with a new statement next year. I don't know what happens next year, but I think that, I think he, Mr. Abe, will be very much cautious about the, make a calculation of what implies to be the sort of Japan's relations with neighboring countries as well as the United States. And then he showed strong commitments to the US separatists. If he is a true nationalist, he might seek sort of more independent, there's kind of goalist policy insecurity, but his decision is to get along with US Japan alliance and strengthen Japan's role in the alliance. So that is maybe different from so much nationalist view on him. And sadly, so seeking partnership with Australia, India, Russia and other countries. And that is also more kind of representation of his aspect of internationalists. And promoting TPP, despite of the strong opposition from domestic traditional constituencies of LDP. So the second question is Japan back. Abenomics, we had excellent panel in the morning and since I'm not the economist, I don't think I have anything to add. But from an ordinary citizen's viewpoint, psychology is pretty much important. And our psychology is judged by the statistic, numbers, stock price. I don't know, stock price is not everything, but when the diet was dissolved, the price was 9,024 yen or the Nikkei index. Then it became 16,374 yen in actually last month. Then now it dropped because of some recession or sort of anxiety in the world economy. But this, it seems to me that there is a pretty much strong confidence among the Japanese people that Abenomics may be working. And although GDP statistics, it's a bit ambiguous. Then challenges to your head, though. Maybe growth could be slowed down. And economists in the UK wrote kind of a small piece on the Abengedon, what's it's kind of Armageddon version of Abenomics. So there may be a clash if the other suraband of JGP is sort of going up. And then the uncertainty is if the Japanese government, further raise the consumption tax by 2%, never happens. What about foreign security policy? I think I would like to characterize his vision of foreign policy is bringing geopolitics back in. He tried to, his foreign policy is characterized as a bird's eye view of world affairs. So look down the earth and have a sort of very broad perspective, just simply focusing on US, Japan, alliance, or Asia, but more to grow perspective. Because one part is driven by the energy security. After Fukushima, the no nuclear power plants working at this moment, so more necessity to secure the energy supply. So naturally government has to take care of its policy towards the Middle East and the more stable energy supply. Secondly, I don't know if he's driven by his own interests or more strategic perspective, but he has a strong kind of a sense of proximity probably with the leaders of India, Russia, and Turkey. With Mr. Putin, he met several times, I think more than he met with President Obama and India as well and Turkey. So the leaders of these countries are relatively strong with a strong nature. So I don't know, he has a kind of a similarity. He may find some similarities with himself, but anyway, this rather untraditional way of conducting foreign policy was maybe characteristic of his policy. And besides diplomacy, amazingly, he had already paid more than 50 times foreign countries, which is even much more than Mr. Koizumi did in his five years. And also he chose Africa as the destination for his first trip in 2014. So he probably has some strategy combined to engage with the world more. And the strengths in security partnership, US-Japan alliance, our governments are currently conducting the upgrading, the guidelines for the defense guidelines and I think that's a pretty much positive direction. And also, it seems he is completing the security diamonds, which is a sort of concept he published before he became Prime Minister. And at that time, it was some sort of criticize as it may be something to encircle China or kind of, but that is the diamonds consisting of four peaks, Japan, Guam, India, and Australia. And if that ties are completed, I think the security in the Pacific region, India Pacific region could be further sort of strengthened. So I think it's a good move. But although I have a small footnote about India, may people in Japan find the relations with India with positive way, but I remember one US prominent strategist said, everybody falls in love with India, but India never falls in love with anybody. So we have to be careful about very pragmatic move of India. But with this, if that diamonds, diamond completed, we are pretty much positive for the stability of the region. But missing piece is China and ROK. You know, Mr. Obama and try to mediate between two close allies of the United States at the margin of a nuclear security summit in the spring. But what happens, you know. They are still for a part, unfortunately. So, but you know, from those who are actually working security issues, they're engaging as sort of if Japan and ROK are working together, that will be much benefit for security of East Asia along with the United States. So, you know, hope that that won't come back like this way. And then finally, what would be the challenge then? That's the main thing that I have to, I will conclude with this. My question is, can Mr. Abe meet expectations, various expectations at home as well as abroad? On the foreign policy, I think Japan, Japanese government need to deliver what they have promised with the international community. You know, Mr. Abe made a very good speech at UN on the commitment to the right of women and also the issues of Africa, the stability of Middle East and various things. So, maybe he need to, Japan need to deliver these commitments. And probably there is expectation in the U.S. side maybe Japan could do more with regard to the stability of safety in the Middle East possibly after the collective self-defense amendments made. But I think the professor Samuels mentioned that Japan has already been doing something which is beyond the conventional interpretation of collective self-defense even before the amendment of the interpretation is made. So, in my view, I don't think there is not much that Japan can do newly, but still there is a kind of politics, there should be politics going on. And in particular, the situation in Middle East is very, very difficult at this moment. So, if Japanese government would like to do something in the Middle East, I think that trigger a big discourse at domestic arena. And then restoring the relationship with China and ROK. I'm curious actually why Mr. Abe has not been act so proactively to restore the relationship so far. I wonder he had a calculation that naturally or eventually the two countries must approach Japan for restoring the relationship. I don't know, but so far I think his calculation is right. In China, ROK are also ready for the sort of kind of rapprochement. And although it's not so sure whether we can see that 100% restoration of the relationship back on the relationship, normalcy is back on track. Then my worry on this foreign policy front is I would characterize this as a strategic insolvency. Japan has made so many commitments, promises made. Then do we have resources available to fill these commitments? Maybe there is a political will, but some fiscal constraints and constraints in a domestic discourse bound by the domestic discourse. I'm a bit skeptical. Although I think generally the message has a very important positive political impact. So message itself is very good, but then how he can deliver these commitments with limited resources, that is a challenge that he has to face in the foreign policy front. What about domestic politics? For ordinary citizens, I'm interested to know who would be the contender to Mr. Abe, or who would be the successor? I don't see anybody at this moment. You know, Mr. Ishiba was trying to be one, but he finally ended up as a member of the cabinet and he's not so at this moment successful to be recognized as a possible successor of Mr. Abe. Otherwise, I don't see anything and the DPJ and other opposition is too weak. And I'm, you know, I would like to see more robust and strong opposition for more healthy policy dialogue. And secondly, there may be potential social divide over foreign security policy, including history issues. That is the second one. Thirdly, there are some local elections scheduled this fall in Okinawa and Fukushima. And I would like to see the impact of these local elections. I think the DP candidate may be defeated in Okinawa. And in particular, Okinawa, best relocation issue has been so much outstanding question and it could even divide Okinawa and Tokyo further. So, you know, how he could handle this is another challenge. And finally, for most, most important thing is can Mr. Abe sustain the economic growth trend of growth of economy? So, we have discussed what was the third arrow really for the growth strategy and is current fiscal monetary policy sustainable and the previous session suggested that maybe we have to be cautious about it, but that's what the Mr. Abe has overcome and that will be maybe risk for the Japanese politics as well as society. So, thank you very much. Next, we have Professor Richard Samuels who needs no further introduction since the keynote he gave just a little bit earlier. And I believe he's speaking on how Japan responded to the 311 catastrophe. Please welcome Richard Samuels again. Well, thanks very much. I appreciate the chance to revisit 311, but we'll try to be quite brief since, A, I've already tipped my analytic hand to you and a second, you may have already had enough of 311 by now. Having said that, let me talk to you a little bit about 311. 311 was a crisis and crises are usually depicted as a great many different things. One hears opportunity a lot but there's much more about, much more that's embedded in the way we think and talk about crises. One thing though that I discovered to my surprise that we don't associate much with crises is to think about it as an instrument, to think about it as a tool. As I say, I tipped my analytic hand, it's the way of using history. And I'm not gonna quote Machiavelli again, but I'm gonna quote instead another great, do we have this teed up? I wanna quote another great political philosopher. Yeah, okay, there we go. All right, so I wanna quote another great political philosopher, Rahm Emanuel, who said that we should never waste a good crisis. Now that's what I'm talking about. All right, that's what I'm talking about here. And I think understanding how a crisis is used by political entrepreneurs requires us to listen to a national conversation. What are people talking about? So it seemed to me as I was doing this book that there were really four things that the Japanese were talking about after the catastrophe. The first was leadership, the quality of Japanese leadership. The second was risk. The third was solidarity and community, which we've already heard a bit about this morning. And the last was change. So let me just flick at the first three, spend a little bit more time on the fourth and then get out of your way. On leadership, Prime Minister Khan, as I said in my remarks earlier, became the villain in chief. He was the bad guy by all accounts. He bungled it, he didn't do well and so on. We've heard all that without regard for I'm not making a judgment whether that's correct or not. But what's interesting is that didn't matter at all if the critiques of Prime Minister Khan's performance were inconsistent. People said that he was too close to the case. People said he was too distant. People said he acted too quickly. People said he acted too slowly. People said that he was too involved. Others said he was too insouciant. It just, he couldn't buy a vow. That's an Americanism that I don't know if it works in Australia. But anyway, the point is that leadership was up for grabs. Everyone talked about the idea that Japanese leadership is an oxymoron and bemoaned it. The second is, so that's Prime Minister Khan and his partner, Edano Yukio, sort of partly shaded, shielded there. On risk, this is a very horny trope in Japanese political discourse. It's captured in the small island trading nation, the Shimaguniron idea. So it's no surprise and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it became an important element in the national conversation after 311 because the anticipation of further danger was everywhere. That's what people, not surprisingly, were concerned about. Six months, that is on September 11th, 2011, when I was in Tokyo doing the research for this book, I just did a quick Google on Anzen and Sant'en Jiuichi, 311 and safety, and it yielded 525 million hits. That's what people were talking about, all right? This is all I'm just saying. It's a rough indicator. Now there are a lot of ways to characterize risk and vulnerability in Japanese, of course, like risk. But the one that dominated, I think, the national discourse was a word that can't be translated directly. It's moral bleak, can't be translated directly as risk or vulnerability. It's soltegai, unimaginable. It was unimaginable. And it was important in this context because the greatest threats to people, it seemed, were from events that are unanticipated. And so it's use soltegai, unimaginable. It's used by the government, by TEPCO, as an explanation for their failure to prepare the national population for a 311 scale disaster, evoked both risk and vulnerability and did dominate the national discourse. And some use soltegai as a masking, a standard rhetorical device, a masking of their own responsibility, basically masking performance failure. That's just the way it works in rhetoric. That I call in the book, the soltegai defense. TEPCO was all over that one. And it mattered. It mattered that it was unimaginable because if it was an act of nature, they had less culpability than if it was an act of man. And so it was important to say that this was beyond imagination. Of course, we know now that it wasn't beyond imagination at all. But TEPCO, therefore, because people came to understand that, became the consensus villain in the narrative that grew up around the unimaginable. It was an easy target, given its history of falsifying safety reports and covering up violations with holding information from the public. Why the people wondered was so much risk left unplanned for. Why was so much unimagined? Now, the interesting thing, it seems to me, was that it wasn't only TEPCO, but with whom, who used the term soltegai. Soltegai was used to describe the self-defense forces, which was a really extraordinary thing, not because they had failed, but because they had succeeded so well. And so you began seeing headlines and magazine articles that said things like, it's unimaginable that there's nothing that the self-defense forces of Japan can't be prepared for. They're prepared for anything. And they were lauded for their exceptional courage and success in their humanitarian disaster relief and humanitarian assistance activity. So when it comes to the military, the headline said, there is no word for unimaginable in their life. It was very interesting. Now, we heard earlier today about this. We, in fact, I think Tessa, you showed this, where are you? Where's Tessa? There you go. I think you had this photo, didn't you? This is the xitomoji, the single character that characterized, this is a Japanese word now, zeitgeist, for the year of 2011. That was a joke. In Kyoto, zeitgeist is not a Japanese word. Okay, the point is, it is the representative and I was really taken with the comparison to Minamata that a similar kind of a term was used. But social solidarity is, of course, not a new tile in the mosaic of Japanese national identity.  And so, the strong fabric of the community, you had terms like machizukuri, koikizukuri, kunizukuri, all of everything was being zukuri'd. There was community, sunagu, we heard that term earlier this morning as well, kizuna, bombs and so forth, all of this. In the report of the Reconstruction Design Council, the first major government report to be issued after the catastrophe, there were 83 references to social solidarity using one of those several words. 83 references and 39 pages. And almost everyone was either in italics or underlined or in quotes or in bold and if they were able to issue that report with embossed paper, it would have been embossed. This was a major, a major trope. Okay, let's go to the one I wanna spend a little bit more time on. This is about change. Everyone was talking about change. Everyone, myself included, were convinced that this was the moment.  You're trained to believe you have a stability and something happens. Something, a war happens, a catastrophe happens, and it shakes up the institutions such that they can be reformulated, reused, repurposed, if you like. So a new chapter would begin, the post war would be over and the post catastrophe would be the new age that people would be talking about. Windows of opportunity, new generations, you get the point and so forth. And as I said in my remarks earlier, basically this came down to three models, three ways of thinking about change. I won't reprise this except to, well, I won't reprise this. There were those who said put it in gear, those who said stay the course, and those who said reverse course. And what I did in the book was to look at that in the sectors that I knew best. That is, these are each areas that I've written books about. So I had done a book on security, a book on energy, and a book no one remembers, which was my doctoral dissertation that was my first book on local government. Llewellyn, did I ever make you read this? I'd ever made you read this. Okay, not the local government book. You weren't born then when I wrote that one. But given limited time, let me just flick at two of these sectors, because what happens is the way this works is you've got three models and you've got three sectors, you've got nine narratives, and I'm not gonna do that to you.  All right, so let's look at security. For Accelerative, the people who said get it in gear, put it in gear, they looked at this event and they said the lesson of this event is that this was a wake-up call. The next time the Japanese self-defense forces are called upon to do the important work that they did, they're not gonna be able to call home and say I'll be home for dinner, honey, because people will be shooting at them. They won't be, are they ready for that? This is a wake-up call. They've got it, we've got to have better equipment, better lift, be able to get equipment, that get a material out to them in the field when they're under pressure in a war, and so it's a wake-up call. There were those who said, just stay the course. For them, 311 on the sustained side was a proof of concept. They said we have been saying for 50 years or more that the self-defense forces need to be considered a legitimate element, a legitimate arm of Japanese government and the alliance with the United States is really critical in its performance and in our national security, and so we told you so. That's their narrative, proof of concept. So just let's just do it. Let's just keep doing what we're doing. Maybe we can do more, but we don't have to change everything. And then this was the interesting one. The folks who were saying, let's go back to the future, they had a different idea. Their idea was to go back to the true meaning, the original intention of Article 9 of the Constitution that is to re-tether themselves to Article 9 and say they acknowledged that the self-defense forces did a brilliant job in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief after 311. They did a brilliant job, and the Americans did a terrific job. They don't focus much on that one, but there were 20,000 US troops in Operation Tomodachi, which it's interesting. This is the first time the term Operation Tomodachi has been uttered. We've been talking about 311 for a long time. I got to report that back in Washington. But the point is for them, the lesson of 311 is these guys did a great job because they didn't have guns in their hands. They had shovels. So the lesson is we should have a global humanitarian assistance and disaster relief force. That's what Article 9 is for. That's what we should be doing and we shouldn't be carrying guns and thinking about war and so forth. So their narrative is a disarmament narrative. In energy, I'll just quickly flick at this and then really we'll sit down. But in energy, the nuclear village narrative was the one that I think most people paid attention to.  Let's get out of, even out of fossil fuels, let's move on to renewables. We're talking about really making big changes in the way in which energy is delivered and generated and delivered in Japan. So for them, it was all about using the collusive behavior of the regulators who didn't regulate and the regulated who weren't regulated and their collusion, everything from Amakudari on down, no pun intended. The whole nuclear, the whole nuclear village narrative got a lot of traction in Japan from the folks who wanted to get out of and into renewables. The folks who said sustain, as I said earlier in my remarks, it was all about the black swan. They said, look, we can't do without nuclear, we will just, we can't, we have to have a base load, a stable base load, we can't do it without nuclear, we can have safer nuclear plants, we can re-regulate them, we can get the regulators out of the, you know, separate the regulators from the promoters that has get it out of METI, they did. But let's stay the course because we need nuclear energy. And after all, this is a once in a millennium black swan. And those who said, let's just go back to simpler time.  And if we would just go back to a time when countryside and city were in better balance with one another, all would be okay. It's different from these guys, whoops, from these guys, because these guys are pro-growth. These guys are not, okay. But it's a very different, so it's a very different kind of narrative. All right, finally. The way I come out is with a pair of epigraphs that frame what I thought were the mixed lessons. Remember, I was writing from a very close perspective on this. I was finishing this manuscript in June, July of 2012. We saw the demonstrations at that time. So I was watching those demonstrations while I was finishing this. And it seemed to me that there were two basic paths that Japan's politics would head in and that it was really too early to know which one it would be. And they were framed by these two quotes, one by a civic activist who said, look, there are no villains in the story, only a dysfunctional system. And for him, he actually chaired the first independent diet investigation ever. His hearings were open, they were televised, they were translated into English in real time so that the world would see what the Japanese were talking about when they end trying to fix because he was worried that if it was only done in camera and in Japanese, it would be covered up. So his approach was for transparency and said, look, we have opportunity here for structural change that extends far beyond this commission that there's a move that 311 stimulated toward more open debate in Japan, more transparent decision making and suggested the possibility for a very robustly democratic Japan. This quote, more troubling, right? You read it and you go, wow. Well, I asked, this was a diet member and I asked him three times to repeat himself because I really was surprised at hearing this. His observation on, in contrast, aligns with a different, I thought, fairly insistent finding of the research which is that much of the crisis rhetoric might amount to little more than empty and self-serving chatter. He voiced really a rather unpleasant truth about crises in general is that even citizens who are moved to help neighbors in distress find it difficult to sustain their empathy for really long periods of time because they have their own discontents, they have their own problems. So after I thought about this a bit and talked to my neighbors and others, I took it less cynically than I initially did and more as a comment on the credulity of analysts like myself and on the manipulative efforts by policy entrepreneurs which I've already described who plant false hopes for change. On this account, the rhetoric of crisis should be dialed back to a more realistic level, one that focuses on regaining what was lost rather than on creating what ultimately can't be. It suggests in a way that resilience is the best that the 311 victims can expect from themselves and that indulgence may be the most they can really realistically expect from others. So it ends by saying, I end by saying that the master narrative is still under construction. The blame game is very much still underway. So you get this. Now, before anyone leaves this room and believes that I think this is peculiarly Japanese, I wanna share this. And this. And finally, this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Professor Samuels. A somewhat more uplifting presentation than a really is. We have about 10 minutes for questions. So I might take a few questions at a time and then get the panelists to respond. So first at the back there, Chris. Down here and then Murray. Christopher Bacaria from Waseda University. Professor Samuels, I admire your passion immediately after 311 being a lightning rod for thinking about change in Japan and everything. But let me be blunt, a little bit critical. Myself and I think many other people in Japan were really quite taken aback by a lot of Japanese study scholars, what academic entrepreneurialism in response to 311, the proliferation of publications, proposals, and numerous organizational efforts, which was really about kind of your disaster, my opportunity in many respects to send a little bit cynical. And it's particularly strange coming from Japan specialists because there's one common thing in history about Japan, of course, is that Japan's had myriad disasters and very few of them have been transformative. The architects, for example, have told us a lot about the myriad missed opportunities when you've had, for example, Tokyo burnt to ruins. So what does it tell us about our scholarly endeavors in relation to Japan, that there was an irony that perhaps we didn't bring a balanced sense of a scale of disaster to our interpretation of 311? I might take a couple more, yeah, if that's all right. Down here. Thank you. Gensukiyoshida, political minister of Japanese embassy. First of all, I'd like to thank all the panels for their excellent presentations. I found them all educating, insightful, and informative. I have one comment and one question. My comment goes to the very title of this panel, Japan's political risks. My immediate reaction is, is there any? I don't think it's in everybody's mind that Japan's politics facing risks, although we are aware that we have a whole bunch of, a whole platoon of challenges, political, economic, and social, but not just abe government is robust in Japan. We have successfully practiced parliamentary democracies for more than seven decades. So risks is a little bit too alarming a word, so I just wonder if Shiro-san might want to consider revision of the title. And the question goes to my friend Akiyama-sensei. I was impressed by your presentation, especially when you say we are facing a strategic insolvency. As a person who has been in the foreign service for nearly three decades, probably I am more than anybody else acutely aware of Japan's foreign services understaffed and underfunded, but we cannot complain forever about this dire situation. So I wonder if Akiyama-sensei could enlighten us with your brilliant ideas. What could be possible way out of this strategic insolvency? I was intrigued by Professor Mulligan's less than half glass empty approach to politics in Japan, and it's very understandable in many cases if somebody's been involved for a very long time that that is the way. However, I wanted to specifically address the point which I know you're a specialist in, and that is the agricultural politics of Japan. In the seven years that I was there, and subsequently, I think one saw a gradual whittling away of the power of the agricultural lobby, albeit that it's still very strong and it's still kicking. It's certainly less strong, I think, now than it has been for a long time. The critical point is that while it's, while change is happening in the agriculture sector, where there's increased tendency towards corporatisation and more efficient farming practices to increase productivity and that sort of thing, is it going to be the death knell of Japan's ability to sign on to any meaningful TPP or will obey and others bite the bullet and at least go really part of the way to significantly reducing tariffs beyond those that they reduced in the Australia, Japan free trade agreement. And we have two additional questions. We might get the panellists to respond first and then open up to another round, so. Shall I start with Kristen? Yes, please. Kristen, okay, so that's an interesting question. I've been called an academic entrepreneur before. Especially in my selection of research topics. Let me start from a point that you made, which I think is exactly right. That is, there have been very few transformative crises, although the Pacific War certainly was won. I think 1923 in Tokyo certainly was won. The Japanese military comes, and this is something that Tessa alluded to earlier today. The Japanese military comes out the other end of that event with significantly greater power, after 1925 certainly, significantly greater power than it had ever had before, than it had before. And it mattered. I think 1923 and that crisis mattered a lot for the balance of power inside Japanese domestic politics. You identify a cynical, I think it was the opposite for most of the people who rushed in to try to understand what had happened. I think as I said in my remarks, we all cut our teeth on ideas that moments of real perturbations to a system deserve our attention, and that it's our responsibility to figure out what will be left when things settle into the new equilibrium. From a social science perspective, it's sort of an imperative. It's what we do as social scientists. Number one, second, just from a Japanese perspective, the Japanese deeply cared about how to understand what had happened, that's what the national conversation was about. The world cared about what had happened and what to make of it, and so it just seems to me that there's no reason to be cynical about why academics who have presumably, notionally, the tools to do the analysis wouldn't rush in to do the analysis, and I think that's what was motivating my colleagues, and certainly that was what was motivating me. On March 10th, I had basically 80% of a manuscript ready to go on political captivity, and I dropped it, and although Llewelyn has been trying to get me to go back to it, for three years, I'm not sure I will. That's a book that won't get written because I thought this was just so important. Akiyama-san. Thank you, Yoshida-san. In Japan, the one of the imminent issue is so-called Black Company. That's the company which forced the laborers to make up volunteer extra-hour works for free of charge, and I think foreign ministry is one of them. So I'm not going to blame my colleagues and foreign ministry, and I don't wanna say work hard more, but it's my concern about this political insolvency, the strategic insolvency, which is about the gap between the expectations and what Japan can deliver, and if Japan keep on committing more and more, then Japan is not able to deliver what they have promised. So that kind of gap or insolvency probably caused the distress on the Japan or Japanese government. So the thing is, two things, maybe the government can do some expectation controls or reframing what they have promised as what actual Japanese government is doing. That means, I think Japan does not need to pay for everything. For example, in the cooperation with the international community to promote the women's right or minorities' right, I actually was suggesting my colleagues that maybe Japan should establish a fund and a UN framework to support activities to help the women in the conflict or something, but probably in case of a human security fund which was a president example, Japan paid everything, but lacked the international cooperation. But maybe this time Japan tried to take initiative in creating some sort of international initiative and put some seed money, but collect money from others as well. So that's probably the way how we utilize the limited resources and sort of put the leverage on the idea into this international community. And the other thing is, since Mr. Abe has made a commitment in particular with the partners such as Australia, United States and other security partners, I think maybe that's the message that political, the political messages carried through this strengthening framework is a very important reassurance to the countries in the region for a contribution to the security. So I think this in Japan should commit more to dialogue and dialogue is relatively free compared to the spending money on assistance and so forth. So I think the political commitment is something that I would like to emphasize as a solution. Thank you. Really? I'm worried to deal with the first part of your question first.  Well, my answer to this question is that's up to the United States as much as it is to Japan. Japan's TPP policy is, or stance or strategy is to act cautiously and wait for the United States to show flexibility. And there's quite a difference between Japan now on TPP and say Japan 20 years ago in the final stages of the Euro-Gray Round Agricultural Agreement. Japan is not afraid now of being blamed or isolated and blamed for the failure of the TPP. It will share the blame with the United States. Everyone is waiting for them to do a deal, both of them. So it's not solely up to Japan. I know what to answer. The second part, will Japan go beyond what it did in relation to Australia? Well, in my view, Japan was very much hoping that JAPA, the Japan Australia EPA, would act as the model for its agreement with the United States. And as we know, the United States is not prepared to accept this, it wants more. But, you know, I mean, what's the TPP, but he's not prepared to open the agricultural market to get it. And here he has history on his side. No trade agreement that Japan has ever signed has ever opened its agricultural market. It has an agricultural exclusions-based trade strategy. So there are exclusions with very high levels of tariffs and other arrangements for a very, very small number of agricultural, so-called sensitive agricultural products. So, this question of can they come to a landing zone or is this favorite phrase that they tend to use or land in place for and get an agreement in terms of what level of tariffs, what level of tariffs will they end up on beef and cork? At what point will the safeguards kick in and will the United States accept special deals on rice? For example, there could be the creation of a 400,000-ton rice quota on top of the existing one and that demand could be steered largely towards the United States' rice growers as a kind of a sweetener in the deal. So, and what to do about cars, too. There could be some sort of bilateralism evident here. And that's to be expected because the TPP's turning out to be a series of bilateral deals. So, you know, I think that Japan is gonna stick to its guns on the TPP and it's a question of both showing flexibility, but whether they can come together at a mutually agreed point is anyone's guess. I wouldn't like to put it in your mind. I know we're running out of time, but I did cut two questions off before we open to the panel. So, I'll get Llewellyn and Manuel to ask quick questions and make quick comments and then get quick responses from the panel. Okay, thanks for the terrific panel, Llewellyn Hughes, from the Kroger School here at the EMU. And I have a question for both Professor Sandals and Professor Mulden. About the role of the public restraining force in Japanese politics, particularly in relation to security policy. The reason I ask this is because I have slightly different, quite different views of the role of the public in Japanese policy, right, with the two of you. Professor Sandals and Yukina alluded to the role of Japanese citizens slash voters, moderating the air bay of the administration's attempt to change the air bay in relation to collective defense. And that was a very different view to the views that I heard Professor Mulden offer on the role of citizens slash voters in Japanese politics as primarily organized through kind of collective organizations associated with individual politicians. So I want to ask, can you see the role of the public in relation to security policy, particularly as a restraining role to the strength on our collective defense and intelligence and in relation to the current changes in this area? That's pretty close to the same question I had. So I'll just add a little something into the mix, which is that more than 60% of Japanese voters are completely unaligned to any political party and have that added to the conversation. The same question and brief. Well, really, one more question. That's just as my answer is the briefest. I agree with Dem. I was talking about an organized interest group. And I'm not sure there are organized interest groups on defense, but you're talking about the broad public here rather than organized interest group. And I've had to make that distinction myself in something else I've been doing lately, where there are a lot of citizens' movements against the TPP, but I was restricted to talking just about interest groups on the TPP. So that's really all I have to say on that. Now, as for unaligned voters, I don't think it's 60%. On the latest NHK poll, it's somewhere around 35% to 37%. So it's much, much, much, much, in terms of people expressing a view that they are not supporting any political party. So that's how you want to define it. Well, my answer is I agree with her. Almost. Almost. A couple of things. To the well-expressed, we're almost part of the public question. I am really struck repeatedly by how important public opinion is in areas where you know the political leadership is determined to do something. And yet, it has got to, as you, the term you used, I think, is exactly the right term, to moderate its expectations and its prescriptions. And it did it in collective defense. It did it in intelligence, in the state security law. But it's done it more broadly. A, B, on the other hand, there has been a rise in public acceptance and embrace of the security of Japan's institutions of national security, particularly its military. There wasn't really a debate about whether or not Japan should have a secrecy law. That's a huge change. That's public opinion. And I think it's changed over time. On this issue of how many are not aligned, the number I saw, I was shaking my, we said 60%, I was shaking my head. But the thought bubble above it was, I don't think it's that high. But it's not as low as, I think, a really, I mean, that's a range. The number I most recently seen was 48%. People, and I don't know if it was NHK, but it was a public opinion poll that asked, what party do you support? And the people who said no party, who said 48%. That's huge. And those are the people I was talking about who can be swayed, who are half, as I said in my keynote, have years. They are listening to the debate. They're making judgments. They can be swayed. And so it's up to the political entrepreneurs to move them. But unless they do, the political entrepreneurs are not going to get all the way to the image. That's democracy. That to me is very reassuring. Well, please join me in thanking the panel for an excellent-


That's actually really hard for me. Oh, that's soft. Hi everyone, this is Dr. Wallace. Today I'm gonna ask you, if you can be any age, what age would you be? The age that I am right now, so 26. I would probably wanna stay like 17 because I think that's a really prime time in the life and honestly, I don't really know why I just, I enjoy it now. I would love to be the age of 22 because I love to live in the present and I'm 22. My age right now, that's 39, that's the age. So it gets better every year. I would be like my age right now, yeah. My age is 36, which is, I think it's a perfect time that I could grow up everything by myself. I would be five because I just don't have to worry about anything, no school, no homework, nothing to manage, so I would be five years old. I'm allowed to be like 22 again if I could retain all my memories. 25, because you're old enough to know what you're doing but you're young enough to have your whole life ahead of you. I think I would be 18 again because I wanna experience all my youthful memories all over again as well as do things like start an entrepreneurship venture early in my eighths. I could be in the fourth 30 and the 30 earlier than usual so yes, I would be 18 again. I would be cool with 19 because there's a little more responsibility involved with it, college definitely and a lot more maturity involved with it as well. And I think it'd just be a lot of fun.  But like, I don't know, I think it'd be kind of nice, just a little bit older, just progress through life. I would pick right now 29 for like the psychological completion or the emotional development. Yeah. I think if I was considering myself as an athlete, like 22 to be a D2 tennis player again. May I ask you how old are you right now? I'm 30 something, 38. Okay.


Hey, tribe of journeymen and women. So today I decided to sit down together with you and Obviously have this cup of coffee. So join me with the coffee if you like it And talk to you about a bit about my story and a bit about what this channel is aiming to be So you could say that this is gonna be a trailer and I will be addressing some of the subjects as if For people who do not know me Like for people who just jumped in and they're curious they saw, you know You saw one video or two videos and I was like, who is this guy? And and I'm gonna put this video on, you know, the trailer part of the channel So you could watch this and kind of get to know me what I'm about and what this channel is about And jump into the story right away But also if you do know me from some of the other journeys that are already public and you know, you know, personally I will be doing my best Not only kind of satisfy the new people, but also if if you're already on Going on along this journey I will do my best to also clarify some of the intentions of this channel and share some valuable unique lessons that I learned through this journey so that You could also kind of become more in sync with what's happening here. And so it's not gonna be a waste even if you are You know kind of the general outline of things. This is gonna be a recap, but also I'll add some new things So just kind of as long as you're interested and you're not bored listening to this then, you know, just stick with me Now the first segment I'm intending to introduce a kind of a quick recap of my story of how things got to here and The main kind of most important aspects of my life that happened is well first of all ever since I was little I Always felt that I want to have a positive impact on others And it's I'm kind of grateful For that quality that inherent quality I guess and I was a actually when I was a child and I was little I was a timid shy kid was just like Who's shy now? I do get shy sometimes, but obviously a lot of change happened But me and my brother whom I actually like to show you know, this is a picture of me and him. I'm on the left so me and my brother we He's four years older than me three and a half and he was the kid who was you know all over the place active Outspoken and I guess as it's kind of usual for brothers, you know to choose different roles I think it's common that brothers usually are very distinct my brother was I'm sorry. I was The shy timid kid and I was kind of very thoughtful very imaginative and I spent a lot of time Just kind of playing with myself playing with my imaginary friends. I actually had imaginary friends for a while and I told you this is gonna be some new news So I remember I had my imaginary friends with spider-man. I used to adore spider-man when I was small Then there was venom. He's one of his arching enemies, which is kind of good and bad You know, he's in between, but I kind of like the power behind him Then I had Wolverine which I fell in love with while watching the X-Men animated series and also he had actually surprisingly the Batman of the future Can't remember Tim McGinnis I think anyway, he's I watched his cartoon the modern one which followed the Batman animated series where he is You know a young Batman to become Batman and and I guess I kind of identified more with him I wasn't in love with Batman at that day but those four were my imaginary friends with whom I spent quite some time and I Think I let go of them quite late I think I kind of still gently sometimes reach out to them or talk to them and discuss things and kind of took them as my Mentors for quite a while Not to say though that I did not have friends in my childhood. I Did have a bunch of friends Like you know, I play in the in the yard together with a bunch of other kids and and interesting enough like while I was shy especially at school in the first few years at the same time in the in the in the You know outside of the house which kids used to play outside of the house Not anymore. I guess Interestingly enough I was kind of the leader Because my my imagination was so kind of more developed I guess than my friends that whenever we would play imaginary games that what would you that's what you would do in The past because we didn't have like these crazy video games you have these days So that I would be the one responsible to be the one to create the storyline and then we would get into it And and yeah, I kind of took the leadership role many times but it's kind of what I'm aiming to say and in the storyline is that I I was always very sensitive and thoughtful and imaginative and I think that part of that led me to being also empathetic which I don't know if anybody knows that words in Lithuanian in my language It's a common word, but when you feel for others when you know if somebody Hurts their finger and you're like I hurt you I was very I had a very strong sense of that And when I reflect back into my life, I Actually consider that I'm very grateful. I had this quality because I would feel for people and I would care for them like I imagine I remember there's this Piece of paper Like a notebook from my first year in school or second year in school where we were encouraged to write some stuff and It's a long story, so I'll go short, but part the there was a question. So what do you want to do? Like what's what do you want to do in life or something like that? You know and most people wrote like I want to be an astronaut or whatever, you know president that stuff But I think I from what I remember I wrote that I would like to Eliminate poverty from the world and and kind of Make sure that all homeless people would have a home something like that So it shows that I was very caring and kind of thoughtful from early on and it's just enough I think that kind of always stayed now not to say that That that part of me was always as present especially during the last few years I will come come to that I'm pretty I presume but Especially for the last few years I burnt myself a lot and I got hurt in many different ways one of them was which is covered in a video. It's the I How most my Aikido students abandoned me and then when I opened up the martial arts journey YouTube channel my main channel Now has over 125,000 subscribers as I'm recording this You know, I kind of went into a war with some parts of the martial arts and then a lot of people hated me Criticized me and so I think all of that Kind of dimmed down my my natural inherent quality of caring for people. I think it was always there But when you get hurt, I think you kind of cover it into a shell and you become more careful about you know What you do and how you reach out to others But these days I Realized, you know what I need to own this part I need to come back to that desire that I had ever since I was a kid and just let it lose just like care about everyone 110% and You know, I learned my lessons I kind of learned how not to you know get tricked as much or get or get hurt as much As I used to as I did so I you know, I'm more cautious I'm more aware of what mistakes not to do sure I will do many more still but But now I have more intelligence to how to be that caring and giving person and that's kind of this journey This channel is all about But I kind of jump to the end and let's make sure we then don't skip too many parts and let's come back a bit Back into the past So I was a creative empathetic Empathetic I guess that's how we pronounce it child and very caring and The prom was I was growing up in a rough city I saw a lot of Crimes a lot of violence my friends were good beating up all the time. I have this covered in some other video So I won't go to detail in that but but I think that made me even more caring because I would I would question So why do people do this? Why is this happening and what could I do about that? That later helped me resonate actually with the character of Batman because you know Gotham if you know the mythology Then I discovered Iqido When I was 14 a friend of mine invited me to try out Iqido and I was already in love with the Japanese culture especially the samurai culture, I loved the movie The Last Summary and I always was intrigued about martial arts But never really trained one but then my friend invited me to try out Iqido and from the first time I saw it I was like this is perfect for me. You know, they have the swords which I love and I was a very peaceful kid I didn't like violence and Iqido was promising to Give you a martial art which is peaceful which where you don't use violence to protect yourself and others And it's all about protecting so I was like this is just perfect for me And also there were Hakamas the fancy Iqido pants that you see them wearing which I was like I was like I want one thing is you have to earn one and Iqido they don't give it to you until you get like close to a black belt So so I earned it, but that also kind of motivated me so there were so many things which fell into place and and I really liked Iqido I really liked training it and I So I started when I was 14 just just turned 14 There's kind of a significant point in my life that happened to you is My dad had a stroke actually doing that kind of around that time And now that I think back about it, I do sometimes talk about it, but I feel that really made me more thoughtful because well, I was a timid shy child around when I was 12 I Actually started becoming much more open and I started hanging out with the cool kids We would smoke I started smoking. I was 12. We would drink alcohol a Lot I was the one who drank most Yeah So yeah, and and so I was hanging out with them partying I was the youngest kid with them, but I kind of I guess I was a bit more mature for my age So they really liked me. I was cold. My nickname was demon. I would always wear sunglasses day night I have this kind of character. So so the kids really liked me and and I kind of became party of the soul. I started I Started also doing theater in School. I got main roles It's a whole funny story in its own, but but I kind of really opened up and But I think when my dad Had a stroke and he survived and he's still around and everything and it's a great story about that that it turned out so good But now that I look back, I think it actually Made me think about life a bit more. I think that kind of that experience that Being exposed to that that made me realize somewhere inside that life is unpredictable and it's short It was a direct experience because I saw him How he crumbled I Actually remember that they really well He was my dad is very athletic.  I was I Was I think I was 14 just before I started you know, I guess Or or just yeah, anyway, well, I was I still didn't really cope and understand what's what the heck is happening But I saw him, you know there and the ambulance taking him away and kind of went through that and while I didn't recognize that at the time I Realized that that made me Realized that life is short and that's actually one of the core kind of core parts of my Value system of my of what drives me to this day I keep reminding myself and I I like to remind myself that life is short that it's it can be way shorter than you think and And it's something I I I keep making sure that I would address and remember Sometimes ask not anymore actually but for a while I used to ask very constantly So if I would have one year to live what I would do And I lived like that for a while. I think I just kind of became used to living like that So I don't need to actually even ask that anymore But add that moment Yeah, I realized life is fragile and I think it's such a great gift It's something actually I read once when I was in taekido and I read all the possible books about it There's one I kid instructor who said that specifically and it's a thought I liked He said that death is the greatest gift That human beings have and the way he Justified that argumented it. He said That because you know that life is fleetile that life is can end any time That you will die one day that makes you appreciate it more and strive to do more during that life but But if life would be endless that's kind of what vampire movie sometimes look at Then you kind of become numb and you don't care about anything because we're like it's going forever And I don't necessarily know or think if that's that would be like that But but I kind of resonated with that idea and I thought it's there's some truth And I I do remember remind myself even these days sometimes like life is You know, we all feel like we're we are The hero of our story and to degree we are but the deal is we all most of us feel like we are the center of the world Which is false, you know, we all feel like the world is about me and That you know death is for others other people die No, I won't unless you're exposed to death like you work at a place where death is a common part of it in the western society we kind of try to dim down the the knowledge of death, you know, there's like in India you can Find see corpses on the street Or there's a place where they burn corpses all day long and you can come in as a tourist and watch And so death is not it's really kind of part of life there in the west, you know We really try to kind of pretend like death doesn't exist We don't talk about death much and I think that's I guess we are Trying to make yourself feel more comfortable But at the same time that we lose that gift of death in that way and To make sure that I am the conscious about that I do sometimes stop and even like a couple days ago I did I stopped they looked at you know the sky and the stars and I thought shit, you know, this is It's not gonna last forever Yeah But yeah, I think some people, you know, they they live like they would live forever and They're like, oh, I'm gonna do what I really want to do sometime later and you know doing what you want to do is Not that easy. I'm planning to address that more as we go into the future because you know, I was able to successfully start off a number of projects of Living by doing what I personally Want to do and it's it's a lot of work. It's way more work than people sometimes think especially against the Millenniums But you know, that's a subject for another day, but But yeah, I think embracing that knowledge that life is free tile That you think you're gonna live until it 90 or 100 but to realize that actually any day could be your last one It's a scary thought of course my goodness But when you realize it you suddenly start to appreciate things more and you realize I Don't maybe I don't maybe have as much time as I think so I should start Thinking more and how I want to spend my time and To come back to my own story So, yeah, I guess that exposure To that situation my dad having a stroke kind of made that clear to me and and and I think I started to reflect about that often and I would Think man, I don't know how much I will live So I really need to make sure because I always cared about the world and now I understood that Life can be short life is life is short and it can be even shorter than you think I really need to push hard and and make sure that I Do you something significant?  I started Pushing away my friends or most of them especially the the cool kids they got into drugs and I didn't I didn't want to go into drugs especially at that time You know, it's way too early to try out drugs and a lot of them, you know went through hard shit because of the drug So I didn't I'm happy I pushed that away but I also kind of exclude myself and and kind of Became even more thoughtful started reading books and and then the whole period went through me Deciding what I will do after high school, which is a tough period, but that's covered in different video But yeah, and then I realized I want to become an Ikea instructor So I devoted myself entirely to reading books and and practicing as much as I can Watching all the possible videos about it So so I kind of intuitively understood that I will be as valuable as much as value I will possess as much as I will know and be able to do that eventually led me to Switzerland to live in a martial arts slash spiritual school and I think that that was kind of also driven by the knowledge that one day I will die and if I really want to become good I need to Fully kind of immerse myself in the learning process So living in a martial arts school was ideal for me at the day and it kind of worked out It did help me achieve my goals. I think actually I kind of Had that quality is that quality of life being fleetile and me wanting to contribute to the world continue to lead me and So when I opened my kiddo school my kiddo dojo my kiddo is meditation yoga There's part of part of me I always try to teach each time I would teach the best class possible That was part of my Methodology and it's a tough one. I don't necessarily recommend it But but that was my my way to go. I would each time I would try to teach the best class possible and because I felt like you know I Who knows how much I can I will be able to give So I was really Heading to the whole school and I was really engaging my community and trying to change their lives Now again, this is covered in another video You know how eventually that part of that made me lose most of my students I took some wrong decisions. I need some more decisions. I copied the wrong things from my kiddo instructor And and I was too young as well and didn't know many things that Would have been useful And then I lost a lot of my kiddo students that was painful that hurt me, but then I started recovering I started getting some students back and that's when I started my I kiddo channel initially was a YouTube I kiddo channel I Started putting out tutorials you know tutorials and I turned to be turned out to be good So I was running my dojo and simultaneously at the side like as a hobby. I was running my YouTube channel and early enough I noticed I Looked at it, and I was like holy crap This is gonna be big I Will I will be able to sustain myself financially by this and I will have a huge impact through through this channel and Back then I was married. I Got married in 12 oh wait, no, okay. I met my long story for another day I I Started living with my ex-partner in 2012, and I think we got married in 2014 but we were engaged from the first year so Yeah, so I was ready living with my partner probably we were already married when I started my YouTube channel and I Like she actually encouraged me to start the YouTube channel initially and then I saw the potential in it and When they approach her, I'm like, you know what? This is gonna be huge Like you know, this is like we're gonna this is gonna be our main financial base And and I will I will be able to reach out reached so many people and have impact on so many people through this channel It's like it's gonna be amazing and that was like, you know, I had like I don't know 200 subscribers You know a few thousand views, but I could see that and she looked at me. She's like Roku's you're crazy.  And she didn't she didn't believe me. She's like you're talking nonsense. Like what the heck are you? What where are you coming up with this from but I could see it I could feel it in my gut. This is gonna be amazing And so I continue to pursue YouTube more and more it started to take more and more of my life And I started to look on how I can provide value through YouTube as I was running my dojo and There was this funny moment with my ex She Because I kept telling her this is gonna be big this is gonna be good She got she got tired of it and she told me okay when you're gonna earn 400 euros from your YouTube videos then I Will tell you okay, you were right and I will you know, I will never say you're this is nonsense to you anymore I was like, okay, no problem about six or eight months later. I Earned those 400 euros And she's like no actually I said three months if you earn for three months four hundred years in a row Then I will you know, see you right now. I was like, okay, and eventually that happens And there was this funny moment where my ex she was complaining to my parents kind of in a funny way You know, but she's like, you know, I can't say When Rokas comes up with some nonsense and tells me that this is gonna happen And I think what what the heck is he thinking about and he makes it happen He's not he doesn't make it happen But when I come to her and I tell her that and she thinks I'm crazy. She's complaining to my parents that she can't Can't tell me that I'm crazy because now she's she's thinking Maybe he will make it happen. Although I don't even believe in him and my mom laughs and I'm sitting there, too And she's like, oh, we're already used to that. I'm like, what do you mean mom? And she's like well anytime and anytime Rokas comes and tells us something crazy He's planning to do which sounds like impossible and we think it's impossible. We tell him. Yeah, yeah, go ahead honey It's gonna be great And and so so the idea was like they don't necessarily believe me But they they saw me prove them wrong so many times in those big projects That they're like she was laughing and saying that you know that they don't say that I'm crazy anymore because there's a big chance I actually will prove me possible to be possible And I look at my mom and she's and I'm like and I thought you always believe in me turns out You know, you have those doubts, but you just use you're just used to not saying no anymore because you know, I can prove them wrong It's a funny moment But anyway, so I saw the potential in YouTube and I made my Aikido YouTube channel become one of the free biggest YouTube channels in the world Not YouTube. Sorry. Aikido YouTube channels Aikido channels In the world so it was a big thing a lot of Aikido people knew me I became kind of famous like, you know, people started inviting me and They started inviting me and to their own dojo that I taught a seminar in Germany And I was invited to teach a seminar in France and more and more of those discussions came But then I filmed a crucial video in my life a keto versus NMA Which made me question my my martial arts and I realized it's an important subject So I started covering that subject then the Aikido world started hating me and they disowned me most of them That was a tough period that I separated with my Aikido instructor Pretty much due to that as well. And that was a tough experience as well But I lived through it and I kept developing my martial arts journey channel and eventually that led me to closing my dojo moving to the States for About six seven months. I devoted myself to a full-on martial and mixed martial arts program MMA which at the end of I had a mixed martial arts fight and Which is great because it was on my bucket list and again It was kind of the same approach if you want to learn something completely, you know Dive head deep into it. And that's what I did for six months. I was just training every day for you know a couple times per day So that was a great amazing journey and my martial arts journey channel reached a hundred thousand subscribers I I eventually Started making my living off of it All my money came from it still still does most of my money comes from that channel Then I moved to Ireland where I trained with one of the best known mixed martial arts instructors coaches John Kavana Who is you know, I hate to say this part, but I guess it's not able to say but you know He's he's also known for being the coach of Conor McGregor But not that it's you know, not that that's most important. The thing is John is just an amazing human being and a coach and I felt I feel such a great privilege that I had a chance to just spend time with him because I was I was Helping him out with filming videos for him and training for him training with him and So I had a chance a lot of time to spend with him and talk with him and he's just amazing. No Conor McGregor He's amazing too, but I think you know, some people sometimes focus too much about the part of Coach John Kavana, you know being the coach of Conor McGregor and they they kind of dismissed everything They're the huge other things he has achieved in his life. So so I would like to focus more on that actually But yeah, so that was a great experience and but eventually after a few months of living in Dublin. I came back to Lithuania I Got divorced doing that time by the way, that was the thing on its own and I discovered I found a New lady a different lady in my life and I'm very happy about that. She's a wonderful woman now. I Know we are in a relationship for almost a year now. She's super cool I'm gonna talk a bit more about that in the future as well But then when I came back to spend time with her in Lithuania and I moved back to Lithuania I realized I kind of break myself out From martial arts and I realized like it's not satisfying anymore. I started feeling like I did share the main pointers I did tell the main things about martial arts that I wanted to I did tell my story About martial arts and that impacted a lot of people. So I'm very happy about that like one of the best moments For me was when I would see someone writing me a comment. Oh, you inspired me your martial arts journey inspired me And I was like It's all about that But then I started to feel like I'm only reaching people who are doing martial arts and that frustrated me I was like I need to know As long as I'm alive. I need to make sure I have the most biggest possible positive impact on the world as I can and that led me to a Realization that I need to expand my journey and I need to make sure because I wasn't I was never just about martial arts Martial arts was a vehicle for me But I also did so many other things, you know, I spent so much time learning to meditate and I did yoga and I did all those crazy projects I did a lot and and none of that is covered in the martial arts journey and and I can't cover it there because people are Not gonna People who are subscribed on the martial arts journey channel. They're not very interested in what else I do It's just you know, they expect martial arts there. It's you know, that's the name and so I tried pushing some of my stuff Outside of martial arts into that channel, but it wasn't really accepted. I did some sticks core mistakes myself how I approached that But eventually a long story short that that let me open up a new channel, which is this channel and it was a whole journey of discovering it was like a difficult challenging beginning long story, I'll cover it in different videos why but But yeah, and I had to rediscover my voice I was like asking myself I was kept asked myself so how can I really deliver most value to people and the latest thing I discovered is videos like this Just being completely honest with you Sharing my story and that's I'm pretty sure that that's just one of the parts I have a vision how I will expand later from it But there are valuable lessons. I learned the hard way Which I feel that me sharing my story honestly and learning my Sharing about my failures and successes and insights that they may benefit that may benefit other people Hopefully prevent them from making the same mistakes or become more You know Intelligent through this way. So so that's what I'm focusing on right now Probishing my main stories, which I feel can be valuable to people But my main goal that I want to go to is Even wrote it down as a phrase on one of my desk desktops But basically the biggest vision I would have the biggest dream I have that I would want to want to accomplish while I am alive is to create a movement a Culture of people who are completely devoted to becoming the best possible versions of themselves Who are always constantly working themselves to improve for the better of everyone else and their own as well Let's not forget ourselves. You know, I'm I'm all about that you have to live a life that you enjoy yourself but also you have to live a life that is valuable to everyone and I know that not a lot of people do that not like and I could you know talk forever about that and probably I will why is that in my experience why why we are so focused on our own story we're so protective and And we don't spend most of us don't spend so much time being concerned about others, especially people. We don't like for example But I I would like to inspire as many people as I can to make that shift and to consider everyone else more than they do today and Become the best possible versions of themselves so that they would enrich the world And I feel that that's a great way to also live a life where you're happy It's also a bit of a stressful life, but also it's also demanding and it's important to maintain balance in it That's my experience. I have to make sure always that I make sure that I don't burn myself out and I'm gonna make a video about that but That being said that's that's my biggest aim I would love to create movement a culture of people devoted to becoming their best possible selves owning their shit being open honest vulnerable hard-working happy and Also Devoted to make this world a better place It's 34 minutes a good time to wrap up We'll continue other videos, but I hope that by watching this video. You got a better feel for who am I? what I'm about and I hope we will continue this journey together


Goed afternoon, everyone. All of you here in this beautiful concert hall over where you are in the world watching this live stream. I'm Rob Riemen. I'm the founder and president of the Nexus Institute. And it's a great privilege to welcome all of you on behalf of the Nexus Institute to the Nexus lecture of president Emmanuel Macron. Allow me to extend a very special welcome to the presidential delegation from Paris. Excellents, desinke membre de la délication présidentielle, c'est un grand honneur de vous accueillez ici à l'Institut Nexus. S'agit que vous êtes bienvenue. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. As we are living in a time in which so many important words are misused or have lost their meaning, I would prefer to avoid big words. Yet it would be false modesty not to observe that in all objectivity today all of us are attending a real historical event. Seventy-five years ago in 1948 our continent had become synonymous with two world wars, one hundred million deaths, the poison of nationalism, racism, totalitarianism, Holocaust, Auschwitz. And because of that darkest period in our history in the year of 1948 many political leaders and intellectuals, such as Churchill, Arnauwe, Paul Reno, Raymond Aron, Bertrand Russell, Jean Monnet, came together here in The Hague with their congress of Europe to saw the seeds of what would become our European Union. A united Europe to make sure that what happened in the first half of the 20th century would never happen again. In a sovereign, united and democratic European Union there would be no place anymore for the politics of lies, resentment, hatred, nationalism and extremism. Maar nu, 75 jaar, na dat congress van Europe, onze continent is afhankelijkd door veel crisisen, including a never-expected war. En geefen dit background dat is historisch, dat hier in The Hague, at the Nexus Institute, once again a world thriller, de president de France, Emmanuel Macron, will use this stage to present his vision on the future of Europe. Now before I turn the floor to the president in a minute, let me explain briefly why you can see here on stage, next to the usual flags, also the flag of the Nexus Institute. And it's connection to my invitation to President Macron to deliver an Nexus lecture. In 2006, on Nexus lecturer was Jannos Starger, who was one of the most famous sales place in the world in the 20th century. He was a Hungarian Jew, survivor of the Holocaust, not his two brothers.  After the war, Jannos went to the US, where he, together with a few friends, founded the School for Classical Music in Bloomington, Indiana. En de idee behind the school is to keep alive an education that Hitler wanted to destroy. An education in Bildung, in a profound knowledge of the arts, an education in the pursuit of truth and beauty. Unfortunately, the school is still there, and it is still one of the best. Now I saw Jannos, for a last time, ten years ago, not long before he died on April 28, 2013. En wanneer was about to leave, he suddenly said to me, Rob, carry the flag. And the flag he was referring to, is the flag of the oldest republic in the history of humankind. The flag Jannos Starger kept in mind is the flag of the Republic of Larris. The Republic of Ideas. The Republic of a cosmopolitan spiritual heritage that offers people the opportunity to cultivate their own soul. Carry the flag. Johan Plak, my old friend with whom I founded the 1991 Journal Access, founded in 1962 a bookshop and a publishing house in which he published the most beautiful editions of the classics and poetry with the same attention as Jannos Starger, to keep a culture, now a book culture alive, that the Nazis wanted to destroy. As without the world of books, people would get lost in their own ignorance. Carry the flag. That's what George Stein, a dear friend of both Johan Plak and the Nexus Institute, did with all his work. Keeping alive the tradition of a Baruchspinoza, the tradition of a European humanism, with its idea that our lives are a quest for meaning. And this liberal education is an education in the only nobility that counts. The nobility of spirit. Carry the flag. Our flag symbolizes the Nexus Institute's intent to be part of that Republic of Ideas, the Republic of European Humanism. And this, for this reason that I have chosen, 30 years ago this quote from Magritte Jusna's beautiful novel Memoir de Adrien, as a motto, I quote, Each man fortunate enough to benefit to some degree from this legacy of culture, seemed to me responsible for protecting it and holding it in trust for the human race. Ladies and gentlemen, on April 24th, it is exactly one year ago that a few thousand supporters of President Macron assembled us, the Champ de Mars, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, nervously waiting for the results of the presidential elections. Evelyn en I were among them. Exactly at 8 p.m., the news we were all hoping for popped up on the big screen. With almost 60% of the votes, Emmanuel Macron had won the elections. And around one-half hour later, it was already getting dark, the president arrived with his wife Brigitte, family and friends. And when they walked to the stage, the music of Beethoven you just heard was played, the cellos introducing the theme of the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. And suddenly I understood why all his supporters were given at the entrance of the Champ de Mars, this flag, the flag of Europe. Emmanuel Macron wanted us to know that he would be a president who in his heart is as much a citoyenne de la République Francaise as a citizen of the Republic of Ideas. That he wants to be a political leader who carries the flag, not only of France, but also the flag of the idea of Europe. So join me in a warm welcome to Emmanuel Macron.