The 6th Japan-U.S. Joint Public Policy Forum　"The Foreign Policy and Security Implications of Global Aging for the Future of Japan-U.S. Relations"
（9th Oct, 2014）

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars will hold the sixth annual Japan-U.S. Joint Public Policy Forum in Tokyo. The forum series was launched in 2009 with the goal of bringing together American and Japanese experts in order to facilitate discussion and cooperation between Japan and the United States on issues of global importance.

This year’s forum will focus on the foreign policy and security implications of “global aging,” the shift toward older and more slowly growing or declining populations brought about by falling fertility and rising life expectancy. Over the next few decades, this demographic transformation promises to have a profound impact on the relative geopolitical stature of nations, their capacity and willingness to maintain national security, and the prospects for future peace and prosperity.

Nowhere is this truer than in East Asia, where the extent and rapidity of global aging is greater than anywhere else in the world. Japan, which is “ground zero” for global aging, is sure to face new fiscal and economic constraints even as it seeks to assume a larger geopolitical role in the region. So will South Korea and the other Tigers, which, with a lag, are following the same demographic trajectory as Japan; China, whose age wave will arrive while it is still developing and modernizing, risks growing old before it grows rich, with all the social and economic stress that may entail. Russia, which stands on the brink of the steepest population decline of any great power in modern times, faces even more serious threats to growth and stability.
Meanwhile the United States, though its underlying demographics remain more favorable than those of any other major developed countries, may find that the massive fiscal cost of its age wave threatens its pivot to Asia.

Based on these regional backgrounds, the forum will discuss how global aging will reshape the foreign policy and security environment and identify the challenges that the new environment will pose for the Japan-U.S. partnership. It will also explore strategies for strengthening the alliance so that our two countries can cooperate more effectively in preparing for the demographic gauntlet ahead.