Press Releases

1. Mr. SASAE Kenichiro, Japan CULCON Chair (President of the Japan Institute of International Affars and Former Ambassador of Japan to the United States) and Dr. Sheila A. Smith, U.S.CULCON Chair, (John E. Merow Senior Fellow for Asia Pacific Studies, Council on Foreign Relations) co-chaired the plenary session joined by the panelists representing various fields of the both countries such as government, business and academia.
2. At the beginning of the meeting congratulatory messages from Mr. KISHIDA Fumio, Prime Minister of Japan and the Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States of America, were read out, which addressed the importance of people-to-people exchanges in the Japan-U.S. relationship.
3. Discussions focused on information sharing in the age of digitalization and the role that Japan and the U.S. should play in responding to this trend, as well as multi-layered regional exchanges between the U.S. and Japan. The results of the discussions were summarized in a joint statement.

Note: CULCON was established in June 1961 by a joint statement announced by Prime Minister Ikeda and President Kennedy. Its first meeting was held in Tokyo in January 1962. Ever since then, conferences have been generally held biannually, alternating between Japan and the U.S.