Valdai Club

Chairman, Society of Security and Diplomatic Policy Studies (SSDP). President, Akiyama Associates. 





Projects: Japan-Russia Strategic Dialogue; National Security Policy; Toward a New Economic Constitution of Japan; Building an Independent Fiscal Model.

Professor at Rikkyo University and, since 2008, visiting professor at CISS, Peking University.

Previous positions: professional career in government includes a number of key and senior positions, such as counselor in the Embassy of Japan in Canada, budget examiner in MOF’s Budget Bureau, head of the Banking Investigation Division in MOF’s Banking Bureau, chief of the Nara Prefectural Police Headquarters, and director general of Tokyo Customs; moved to the Defense Agency, serving as director general of the Defense Policy Bureau and the Finance Bureau, and administrative vice-minister of defense (1991–1998); visiting scholar at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University in 1999; chairman of the Ocean Policy Research Foundation (2001–2012; President & Senior Fellow, Tokyo Foundation (2012-2016).

Research interests: defense, national security, maritime issues, Arctic ocean, economic and financial issues. Selected publications: Maritime Security and Japan (2014); How to Handle Disputes in the South China Sea (2014); Maritime Security and the Right of Self-Defense in Peacetime (2013); Developing a Japan Policy towards the Arctic Ocean (2012).