Yuma Osaki (大﨑祐馬) is a political economist in the making. He is a student of International Relations and International Political Economy (IR/IPE), working on Asian economic diplomacy. His PhD project explores international trade governance and the evolution of the global trading system, focusing on the advent of regional economic integration arrangements in Asia from the proriferation of the free trade agreements (FTAs) to the TPP and the RCEP. His MA/LLM dissertation “The Regional Trade Dynamics in the Asia-Pacific: A Comparative Analysis of South Korea, Japan, and China’s Making Free Trade Agreement with Australia” examined the interplay between bilateral and regional FTAs in a multi-layered trading system, through the case studies of three Northeast Asian countries FTAs/EPA with Australia - the so-called “FTA Trifecta”.
In 2016, he left Kyoto and landed in Canberra for the first time to take part in the inaugural National Parliamentary Fellowships Program before commencing his dual-degree program in Sheffield, UK. Organised by the ANU and Japan Center for International Exchange, this inter-governmental research exchange program involved a two-month stint at the Australian Parliament House. In 2019, he joined the Australia-Japan Youth Dialogue (AJYD) as an Organising Committee Member. He also works for a research branch on the Indo-Pacific Geoeconomics at the Japan Forum on International Relations (JFIR).