Since joint declaration of the “facing history, looking to the future” formula in 2008, China and Japan have edged toward constructive management of differences, with a marked upswing in improved relations after 2016. Is this a new form of partnership emerging to fit a new Asian regional order?
Can forward momentum toward economic cooperation withstand headwinds from unresolved disputes over issues of sovereignty and interpreting the historical record?

Dr. Paula Harrell will argue the case for pragmatism over nationalism through a discussion of Professor Ezra Vogel’s latest book, China and Japan: Facing History (Harvard University Press, 2019). A contributor to Facing History and author of Chapter 5, “Japanese Lessons for a Modernizing China,” Harrell will highlight a theme of seminal importance in the China-Japan story over the past 200 years: the remarkable capacity of both countries to enact society-wide changes through open minded acceptance of best practices from each other and the rest of the world.

Speaker:

Paula S. Harrell is a historian of China and Japan (Ph.D., Columbia University) who teaches for the BALS program at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies, where she won the Outstanding Faculty Award in 2019. She has published two books on China-Japan relations: Asia for the Asians (MerwinAsia/ WEAI-Columbia University, 2012) and Sowing the Seeds of Change (Stanford University, 1992). She has also worked for USAID and the World Bank.

Co-Sponsors:

the Asian Studies Program

the Center for Japanese Studies