Hva driver du med for tiden?
I am currently working as a senior researcher and head of Center for Asian Research at NUPI, as well as an associate researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) in Sweden. In these roles, I am in involved in a number of research projects that broadly address various aspects of geopolitical developments in the Indo-Pacific region.
I currently lead the Norwegian Research Council-funded project Roads to Power? The political effects of infrastructure projects in Asia (ROADS), which studies the political effects of infrastructure investments and specifically the role of China and the Belt Road Initiative (BRI), as well as a number of ‘alternative’ infrastructure programs stemming from the US, EU, Japan and the G7.
I am also involved in the newly established Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics, which is led by NUPI with partners from FNI, IFS, University of Oslo and University of Tromsø. In the coming years, the Centre will contribute to building knowledge and competency about international power relations and how they affect Norway’s interests and politics, and Asia is a geographic focus area in the Centre’s research.
The research project ‘Coercive and Emotional Diplomacy in East Asia: Japanese Responses’, which I co-lead, brings together scholars in Europe and Japan and aims to study the role of emotions in Japanese foreign policy. Here we consider how different emotions (i.e. sympathy, empathy; anger) play out in diplomatic practices and in foreign policy engagement bilaterally (i.e. Japan-Ukraine or Japan-South Korea) but also trilaterally (i.e. Japan-China-Taiwan) and multilaterally (i.e. UN).
I am also involved a number of other research participate in address topics such as: evolving craftmanship on digital issues in multilateral fora (focus on China, India and US), defense policy developments in East Asia, and the implications of this for the Euro-Atlantic (i.e. Japan-Europe defense cooperation and Japan-NATO engagement) and developments in Russia-China cooperation in the Arctic since the war in Ukraine.
Hva gjorde deg interessert i å forske på Asia?
My first encounter with Asia as a high school student in Japan was what really sparked my interest in the region. I lived with a host family in Kanazawa (Western Japan) and was enthralled by Japan’s traditional culture but also its close links to the West. At the time, South Korea and Japan were preparing to co-host the World Cup and there was media coverage detailing what a historic event it was anticipated to be in that it was ameliorating complicated bilateral relations. I found the idea of sports diplomacy as a catalyst for improved foreign relations to be intriguing and decided to further study societal and political developments in broader East Asia, Japanese and Mandarin in college. My interest in politics and foreign policy eventually led me to pursue MA degrees in policy and security studies in East Asia and I focused on how non-traditional security issues, such as demographic security and energy security, were playing out in the region. I was interested in how the heightened low-birthrate, rapidly aging demographic trend affected different aspects of Japan’s domestic policy (i.e. childcare and family planning; labor policy; immigration; recruitment in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces; gender equality) but also its foreign policy (i.e. the US-Japan Alliance). This is a topic that I continue to follow with great interest.
Hvor lenge har du jobbet med/i regionen og i hvilke land?
My first encounter with Japan is now over two decades ago, but my interest and work on the broader region has increased particularly over the past 15 years. In 2011, I moved from Japan to Norway and in 2013 I started working at NUPI. Since then, research projects and fieldwork have brought me to a number of places in East and Southeast Asia, including: South Korea, Taiwan, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Singapore and China. Overall, I have resided in Japan for around six years total and experienced being a grad student, researcher and a government employee in Tokyo. I enjoyed the flexibility of being a student and the access that being a government employee provided but in the end it was the researcher role that fit best!
Hva er for deg det mest interessante som skjer i Asia om dagen og hva burde man følge ekstra med på fremover?
2024 has been broadcasted as the year of elections with more than 40% of the world’s population eligible to vote and Asia is no exception here with a slew of presidential, general and legislative elections underway and upcoming. The leadup to the elections and campaigning can be a deep dive into different political and election systems, as well as how domestic and foreign policy is communicated and legitimated by elites and then received by the public.
Both Taiwan and Indonesia recently had elections but of different magnitude and outcome when it comes to the election process. In Taiwan, the ruling DPP party won the election and the incoming President Lai Ching-Te (who is the current Vice President) was declared victorious on the same evening as the election day (polls opened at 8:00 am and closed at 16:00). Nearly 72% of Taiwan’s 20 million eligible voters participated in the election and vote counting was done by hand. In Indonesia, there are over 200 million eligible voters, nearly 85% of which participated in the Presidential election. Over three weeks after the election was held, the official election count is still ongoing and is likely to be announced in the coming weeks.
So, given their magnitude these elections are significant but what remains to be seen is how those put in power will follow through on their election manifestos. In Indonesia, concern about human rights and putting democratic institutions under strain is flagged whereas in Taiwan whether or not President Lai will be able to maintain the status quo in cross-strait relations with China will be in focus. These developments and their domestic as well as international implications will be interesting to follow.
Hva har gått under radaren i det norske nyhetsbildet i det siste?
Understandably recent media focus has been directed to crisis in Europe and the Middle East, but is less often covering how crisis can be a catalyst for heightened cooperation between Europe and Asia. As the world becomes more interconnected, the dynamic economic, demographic and political developments that are taking place in Asia also link back to Europe, and vice versa. While this may seem obvious for those of us who spend time in various locations in Asia doing research there, these interconnections are perhaps not always as obvious when seen from Norway.
In December 2023, Japan and Norway signed a strategic partnership that identified a number of prioritized areas of cooperation. This is a significant upgrade in relations and coincides with Japan’s enhanced engagement with NATO, heightened response to the war in Ukraine and proactive foreign policy. This is also notable because it is part of Japan’s ‘Nordic Diplomacy Initiative’, which was announced in January 2024 and emphasizes areas of cooperation where Japan and the Nordics can collaborate, such as the Arctic and oceans, gender equality, security and defense cooperation, and green, digital and science technologies. How these areas of cooperation – some well-established (i.e. science and technology cooperation), others developing (i.e. security and defense cooperation; support for Ukraine) – will be interesting to follow and hopefully something the Norwegian media picks up on more as the partnership and its contents develop in the coming years. 2025 will mark 120 years of diplomatic relations between Norway and Japan and would be a natural occasion to look both back and forward on bilateral relations, in popular media and in academic work.