Description

Purpose of grant: For a multilateral dialogue effort on peace in Northeast Asia. Amount recommended: A three-year grant of $350,000. Summary: Northeast Asia is one of the world’s most strategically important and unsettled regions, with the Korean Peninsula, the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait all potential flashpoints. A 2013 Luce Foundation grant to the Center for Strategic and International Studies highlighted, through high-level simulation exercises, the need for crisis management and conflict avoidance mechanisms in the region. No such multilateral framework currently exists to set rules and prevent conflict.  The Genron NPO requests our support for a Track II initiative involving the four major powers in Northeast Asia: China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. A few quadrilateral dialogues take place, such as one run by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, also supported by HLF, but are rare. Genron’s proposal aims to build trust and achieve consensus among the parties to establish rules, or a code of conduct, to manage conflict and promote peace. An independent think tank based in Tokyo, The Genron NPO was established in 2001 by Japanese seeking a new platform to address major issues facing the region. Its independence has been key to trust-building. Its Tokyo-Beijing Forum, attended by prominent politicians and scholars, remained active even when official Sino-Japanese ties were severed. Indeed, the Forum’s adoption of a “No-War Pledge” in 2013 (the same year as the CSIS simulation) amid the Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute in the East China Sea became Genron’s signature achievement. Now, Genron wants all four countries to adopt/renew that pledge. The proposed initiative’s centerpiece is an annual Asia Peace Conference, beginning in 2022 and jointly organized with Genron’s partners: Asan Institute for Policy Studies and the Institute of East Asian Studies in South Korea; the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (a military think tank) and Peking University School of International Relations in China; the Pacific Forum, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Mansfield Foundation in the U.S. (HLF special grants in 2017 and 2018 helped Genron build U.S. partnerships.)  The conference will be preceded by a series of bilateral consultations and public opinion polls in each country. Participants will respond to an annual security review prepared for the conference and work to devise mechanisms and rules to prevent accidents and conflicts. Cybersecurity, pandemic cooperation and climate change will also be on the agenda. At the end of this multi-year process, perhaps beyond the scope of the current grant, Genron envisions a meeting involving high-level political leaders who can amplify the impact of any code of conduct or “No-War Pledge” agreed to.  The new Biden Administration’s call for multilateral cooperation has raised hope for international diplomacy and breathed life into Track II dialogues that had all but stalled over the previous four years, especially those involving China. Given Japan’s World War II legacy in the region, Genron’s leadership of this multilateral effort involving the United States is all the more significant. Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $350,000 to The Genron NPO for a multilateral dialogue effort on peace in Northeast Asia. www.genron-npo.net/en/