Organization

Two Committees and Two Councils

Finance Committee

The Finance Committee plays an important role as a sort of "inner cabiet" to provide assistance to the Board of Directors in running the affairs of the Forum. The Finance Committee is composed of Mr. Imai Takashi and 16 other members. It has always been a powerful and reliable organ of the Forum for maintaining the financial health of the Forum. The members of the Finance Committee are as follows;

Members of the Finance Committee

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee also plays an important role to provide assistance to the Board of Directors in running the affairs of the Forum. The Steering Committee is composed of Mr. Ogasawara Toshiaki, Prof. Hakamada Shigeki and 15 other members. It helps the Board of Directors to provide an orientation of the activities of the Forum taking into account the fundamental purpose of the Forum, calling of the time and the needs of its members. It specifically makes a proposal on the theme of the policy recommendations to be adopted by the Policy Council and screens the Policy Council member candidates. The members of the Steering Committee are as follows;

Members of the Steering Committee

Policy Council

The Policy Council conducts policy research and helps its members to produce policy recommendations. The Policy Council is composed of Prof. Ito Kenichi, Mr. Yoshida Haruki and other members. After a theme is proposed by the Steering Committee and adopted by the Policy Council, a Task Force headed by a member of the Policy Council and staffed by research fellows of JFIR serves the Policy Council as assistants for making an intensive in-depth analysis of the issue and working out a draft of the policy recommendations.

The full members of the Policy Council receive and read the Task Force draft recommendations and deliberate on it intensively. When more than two thirds of the full members of the Policy Council endorse the draft or its revision, it is approved and becomes the recommendations of those members of the Policy Council who sign it. Therefore, it should be noted that in this and other cases, the Forum takes no institutional position on issues of foreign policy, though its members are encouraged not only to analyze but to propose alternatives on matters of foreign policy. Though the Forum helps its members to formulate policy recommendations, the responsibility for the contents is that of those members of the Forum who sign them alone. The Forum publicly announces the contents of the recommendations at a press conference following its presentation of the recommendations to the Prime Minister of Japan. The Forum also mails it to about 6,000 opinion leaders both in Japan and abroad.

Since 1988 the Policy Council has publicly announced 33 policy recommendations and presented them to the Prime Minister of Japan. Recent Policy Recommendations have covered themes such as "Prospects and Challenges for the Acceptance of Foreigners to Japan," "Positive Pacifism and the Future of the Japan‐U.S. Alliance," "Japan's Strategy for its Agriculture in the Globalized World," "Nature of Russian State and Japan's Strategy towards Russia," and "India's Leap Forward and Japan."

The members of the Policy Council are as follows;

Members of the Policy Council

Emergency Policy Council

As it takes more than a year for the Policy Council to complete its process of producing recommendations on any specific theme, the theme taken up by the Policy Council tends to be a strategic and /or long-term issue. It was in this context that the Emergency Policy Council was set up in addition to the Policy Council to deal with emergency and/or short-term issues. The Emergency Policy Council is composed of Prof. Takubo Tadae, Mr. Hirabayashi Hiroshi and 15 other members.

As a policy-oriented think tank, the Forum established at its inception the Policy Council with the objective of making recommendations on matters of foreign policy from the long- and medium-term perspective. But, the Forum soon recognized the need for making recommendations from the short-term and more immediate perspective in order to cope with the rapidly changing situation both at home and abroad in a more timely and effective manner. For this purpose, another council entrusted with issuing emergency policy recommendations was set up under the name of the Emergency Policy Council on June 4, 1992. The Emergency Policy Council has already made a number of important emergency appeals and/or meetings:

At the final stage of the Uruguay Round trade negotiations, the Emergency Policy Council announced a public appeal signed by 113 opinion leaders from intellectual, media, business and other circles of Japan. On February 2, 1993 it printed its appeal in an opinion advertisement page of the Yomiuri, Mainichi, Sankei and Nihon Keizai Shimbuns. The appeal apparently had a significant impact on the decision making process of the government of Japan for opening the Japanese rice market.

Later on, the Emergency Policy Council, highly concerned about Japan's inconsistent and fluctuating foreign policy toward Russia, established a committee "Thinking About Japan's Foreign Policy Toward Russia" (chaired by Ichiro Suetsugu) on April 20, 2001. With a joint signature of 10 members, the committee launched the "Emergency Policy Appeal on Japan's Foreign Policy Toward Russia." This committee became independent of the Emergency Policy Council on 13 February, 2004 and is now in operation as one of the Special Study Projects of JFIR.

Then on February 20, 2003, the Emergency Appeal entitled "We Support the Position and Action of the United States in the Iraqi Crisis" signed by 39 persons was made in response to the critical situation arising from the supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq. It has received a significant response from the media. Several newspapers such as Yomiuri Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, and the Japan Times reported it in detail, and "Sekaishuho" (World Weekly) carried the full text of the Appeal with its signatures.

On March 22, 2007, the Emergency Policy Council with its enlarged membership conducted an exchange of views on the so-called issue of "Perception of History". The sensitivity of this issue was heightened by such events as visits to the Yasukuni shrine by Cabinet members. No conclusion or appeal resulted from the deliberations on this problem.

On April 30, 2009, 92 individuals representing various fields of Japan signed an Appeal entitled "Japan Should not Jeopardize its Fundamental Position in Her Negotiations with Russia on the Northern Territories," which was released by the Emergency Policy Council at the national and foreign press conference held on April 30, 2009. Upon circulation by the Jiji Press, it was reported on May 1 by Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, Nihonkeizai Shimbun, Hokkaido Shimbun, and the Japan Times. On May 11, the major four newspapers also carried the full text of the Emergency Appeal with the complete list of the names of its signatories.

On October 6, 2010, the Emergency Policy Council with its enlarged membership conducted an exchange of views on "Senkaku Boat Collision Incident" on October 6, 2010, attended by 36 members, including ITO Kenichi, President/Chairman of the Policy Council of JFIR and TAKUBO Tadae, Chairman of Emergency Policy Council of JFIR. The participating members joined in free discussions on the two main topics of "How to view China's moves" and "How to evaluate the response of the Kan Administration."