Exploring Abe's Role on the Chessboard with Professor Yuichi Hosoya

Mike sits down with Keio University professor Yuichi Hosoya to
discuss one of the longest-tenured players on the Asia chessboard,
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mike and Yuichi kick off the
episode by discussing Yuichi’s role as both an academic and an
informal adviser to the Abe government on foreign policy. The two
then turn to discussing how history and foreign policy are taught
in Japanese universities. The conversation then moves towards
analyzing the cornerstone of Abe’s contribution to the Asia
chessboard, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). What does FOIP
mean to Japan and to Abe? Is it fair to characterize FOIP as a
counter-China strategy? What is ASEAN’s role in FOIP, and how
should the U.S. understand FOIP’s evolution with the present thaw
between Japan and China?