About

- Leadership

Yoichi Funabashi

Yoichi Funabashi

Chairman, Global Council
Founder, Asia Pacific Initiative
Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence

Profile

Yoichi Funabashi is an award-winning Japanese journalist, columnist and author. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, the US-Japan Alliance, geoeconomics and historical issues in the Asia Pacific. He served as a correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun in Beijing (1980-81) and Washington (1984-87), as US General Bureau Chief (1993-97), and later as Editor-in-Chief (2007-10). He was the first Japanese laureate of Stanford University’s prestigious Shorenstein Journalism Award (2016). He established Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, an independent Tokyo-based think tank, in September 2011, which expanded to become Asia Pacific Initiative in 2017. His English books include Meltdown (2021); The Crisis of Liberal Internationalism, ed. (co-edited with G. John Ikenberry, 2020); The Peninsula Question (2007); Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific, ed. (2003); Alliance Adrift (1998, winner of the Shincho Arts and Sciences Award); and Asia-Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (1995, winner of the Mainichi Shimbun Asia Pacific Grand Prix Award). He is a current member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Advisory Council.

Recent Activities


Advisory Panel to Comprehensively Discuss Defense Capabilities as National Strength

First Session: Summary of Funabashi Statement (PDF)
Second Session: Summary of Funabashi Statement (PDF)
Third Session: Summary of Funabashi Statement (PDF)
Fourth Session: Summary of Funabashi Statement (PDF)

International House of Japan

Asia Pacific Initiative