Last update: October 31, 2019

The Korea Japan Group (KJ) was started in 1998 in Washington D.C. by Yoshiko Tanaka-Shichinohe, who held monthly dinners attended by young Korean and Japanese scholars and officials. Its activities have since expanded to cover China, India, and other parts of Asia.

By finding a permanent home at TUJ in 2005, the group has been able to continue to grow and has merged with our other public lectures and private dinners and luncheons. The “KJ” has shaped a network of Koreans and Japanese, as well as other Asians, Europeans, and Americans, who are interested in understanding each other and in discussing issues of common concern. The group meets three times per year in New York as part of ICAS activities in the U.S. In New York, recent sessions have dealt with American policy in Asia, Huawei, South Korean nationalism, Japanese politics, Japan’s media presence and image, and Korea-Japan relations.

In the past, ICAS also hosted an Asia policy discussion group led by Michael Schiffer, then a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Japan (Hitachi Fellow).