[Event Report] KCS Experts’ Roundtable (9): “Japan's Grand Strategy and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific in the Age of Trump”

On July 27, 2026, the Keio University Center for Strategy (KCS) hosted its 9th Experts’ Roundtable (ERT). The event featured a lecture by professor Kei Koga (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), on the theme of “Japan's Grand Strategy and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific in the Age of Trump”.

Attendees included researchers, policy experts, diplomats based in Tokyo, and Keio University students. Professor Koga opened the session with a presentation on Japan's Indo-Pacific strategy, drawing on his recent co-authored book Japan's Grand Strategy: Liminal Power in an Uncertain World, published in March 2026. He introduced a theoretical framework for understanding Japanese grand strategy and traced the historical development of Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, while discussing its future prospects and challenges.

The subsequent Q&A and discussion session featured debate over the definition of strategy employed in the book, the distinction between objectives and approaches within FOIP, and FOIP’s nature as a framework which has aspects of a vision and a strategy, going beyond rhetoric and functioning as a mechanism for mobilizing resources. The discussion also highlighted key features of FOIP, including the accumulation of objectives over time and its ability to employ “tactical hedging”, using ambiguity to gauge international responses. Further exchanges between the speaker and participants addressed a broad range of issues concerning the current state and challenges of Japanese diplomacy, including the origins of FOIP and its relationship to the three strategic documents; the conditions under which FOIP might undergo transformation; concerns regarding U.S. commitment to the region; and Japan’s limited expectations regarding middle-power coalitions.