The political keynote was delivered by Professor Kiichi Fujiwara (University of Tokyo). He described Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s embrace of US President Donald Trump in hope of a tougher US approach against China than President Obama. Professor Fujiwara noted that while Abe has cultivated outstanding personal ties with Trump the policy results have been lacking including on trade relations, alliance politics, and diverging US and Japanese policies toward China and North Korea. He explained the advent of Kantei diplomacy — the concentration of political decision-making and policymaking coordination in the cabinet secretariat. And while this has allowed for top-down leadership and flexibility it has also resulted in the demise of professionalism in foreign policy formulation and a string of policy failures such as Japan–Russia relations, trade negotiation with United States, and Abe’s Iran initiative.