SYMPOSIUM – CONTRIBUTORS

Nicole Bastian is chief foreign editor at German business newspaper “Handelsblatt” in Düsseldorf, which she joined in 2002, writing about politics in East Asia as Tokyo correspondent. After five years in Tokyo, she focused on financial topics and worked as a bank correspondent in Frankfurt. Before joining Handelsblatt, she was an editor at the economics department of the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) in Hamburg as well as economic reporter in Berlin.

Nicole Bastian holds a degree of East Asian Studies from the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Marco Chirullo was the Deputy Chief Negotiator of the EU-Japan EPA. He is also Deputy Head of the Unit responsible for trade relations with Far East Asia, including China, Korea and Japan. He was previously posted at the EU mission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, where he was in charge of the negotiations of the coverage expansion of the Information Technology Agreement (“ITA2”), which he finalised in December 2015. Before that, he served in Brasilia at the EU delegation, where he followed EU-Brazil and EU-Mercosur trade relations.

Marco Chirullo holds a Master degree on European integration at the College of Europe in Bruges and a Post-graduate degree on International Trade from the Université Libre De bruxelles (ULB) and the Ecole de Commerce de Solvay. Italian and French national, he also speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.

After graduating from the University of Kyoto with a Bachelor’s degree in Law in 1986, Iwama Kiminori joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in the same year. In 2002, he became Senior Coordinator of the Minister’s Secretariat and Secretary to the State Minister of Foreign Affairs. Iwama Kiminori also worked in several oversees representations of Japan, most notably, the permanent Mission of Japan to the UN in Geneva from 2003, and served as Chamberlain to the Crown Prince of Japan from July 2009.

In 2018, Iwama Kiminori became Chief of Protocol (Ambassador) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, after he served as the Minister of the Embassy of Japan in Germany for four years.  In January 2020 he took up his current position as Consul-General of Japan in Düsseldorf.

Rolf J. Langhammer was Vice-President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy from October 1997 until August 2012 and Professor at the Kiel Institute. He retired from the Vice-Presidency on August 31, 2012 but continues to work at the Institute. From April 2003 to September 2004, he served as Acting President. From July 1995 to November 2005, he headed the Research Department “Development Economics and Global Integration” at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. In addition, he has been honorary professor in international economic relations and development economics at the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Social Sciences, Kiel University since November 1995 and professor in development economics and international trade at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar/Koblenz from 2013-2016.

He was formerly research division chief at the Kiel Institute (since 1978) and research associate at Kiel University (1972-78) after graduating from the same university. He received his doctorate in 1977 and was awarded several research fellowships and visiting professorships abroad.

Mr. Langhammer has served as consultant to a number of international institutions (EU, World Bank, OECD, UNIDO, ADB), as well as to the German ministries of economic affairs and economic co-operation. Between 1995 and 2007 he was member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Federal Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development. His research issues cover international trade patterns, trade policies, regional integration and international capital flows. He authored, co-authored and co-edited an array of disciplinary books and has published in professional journals and contributed to many volumes of conference proceedings.

Yumiko Nakanishi is Professor of European Union Law at Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, JAPAN and a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg. Her main research fields are EU constitutional law, EU environmental law and EU external relations law. Master of Law (Hitotsubashi University and University of Münster, Germany) and Doctor of law (University of Münster). She is the chief editor of Review of European Law  (『EU法研究』EU ho kenkyu) (信山社Shinzansha). She is a Member of the Board of Directors of the EUSA-Japan.

Recent works: “Climate Change and Environmental Issues in the Economic Partnership Agreement and the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Japan”, Hitotsubashi Journal of Law and Politics, Vol. 48, 2020; Yumiko Nakanishi (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Human Rights Law: Europe and Asia, Springer, 2018; ders (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Environmental Law, Springer, 2016.

Werner Pascha is Professor Emeritus of East Asian Economic Studies/Japan and Korea at the Mercator School of Management and the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) of the University of Duisburg-Essen. He has studied economics at Freiburg University in Germany (doctoral degree in 1986, habilitation in 1991), the London School of Economics, and Nagoya University. Over the years, he has been invited to several other institutes and universities, including Kyoto University (Japan Foundation Fellowship), 1996), Waseda University (2003), Kobe University (2006) and Doshisha University (JSPS Fellowship, 2011).

Among other functions, he is the Vice-President of Japanese-German Centre Berlin (JDZB) and serves in the steering group of EastAsiaNet, the European Research School Network of Contemporary East Asian Studies. He has published widely on the political economy of institutional change in Japan and Korea, and international economic relations of the region.

After graduating from Tokyo University in 1984, Shimokawa Makita joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, where he served as director of several divisions, among other of the First International Economic Affairs Division and Asia-Europe Cooperation Division. He became a Cabinet Counsellor at the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat in 2005 before serving as the Director of the National Security Policy Division in 2008 and as the Minister of the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia in 2011. In recent years, he took up high-ranking positions such as the Deputy-Director General of the Foreign Policy Bureau in 2015, the Director-General for Cultural Affairs in 2016 as well as the Deputy Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 2017.

Shimokawa Makita has been acting as Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Japan to the Kingdom of Belgium, Ambassador in charge of External Communications in Europe as well as Ambassador of Japan to NATO since September 2019.

Since summer 2017, Henning Simon is Director for the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Mongolia and Oceania at the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.

During his diplomatic career, he served inter alia in Moscow, Riga, Brussels, New York, Tashkent and in various functions at the headquarter in Berlin.

Friedolin Strack curently serves as the Head of the Department International Markets of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) as well as Managing Director of APA, the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business. Friedolin Strack also is a Member of the Board of Management of the GHA (German Health Alliance
Professional Career).

Starting his career at the BDI in 1994, he worked on various international issues including foreign trade and investment. In January 2003, he took on his role as Managing Director of APA and became Head of Department in BDI in 2011.

Friedolin Strack holds an M.A. in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin and an M.A. in International Economics from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Markus Taube holds the Chair for East Asian Economic Studies / China as a faculty member of the Mercator School of Management. He is the Director of the IN-EAST Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen as well as a Co-Director of the Confucius Institute Metropolis Ruhr.

Markus Taube has been appointed as Visiting Professor at Nankai University, Tianjin, PR China, (2014-2017 “1000 Plan”, 2019-2022). Furthermore Markus Taube holds various advisory board positions in European academia, business, and politics. 2017-2019 he acted as President of the Euro-Asia Management Studies Association (EAMSA).

Markus Taube started his academic career studying sinology and economics at the Universities of Trier and Wuhan (PR China) and received his doctorate at the Ruhr University Bochum. With his dissertation he became the Walter-Eucken Prize laureate of 1998. Before joining the University of Duisburg-Essen he worked at the ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich. He is a founding partner of THINK!DESK China Research & Consulting.

Shujiro Urata is Professor Emeritus, Waseda University. He was Professor of International Economics, Graduate School Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University. He is currently Faculty Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Specially Appointed Fellow at the Japanese Centre for Economic Research (JCER), Senior Research Advisor, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Visiting Researcher, Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies. Professor Urata received his B.A. in Economics from Keio University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics at Stanford University. He is a former Research Associate at the Brookings Institution, an Economist at the World Bank. He specializes in International Economics and Economics of Development. He has held a number of research and advisory positions including senior advisor to the Government of Indonesia, consultant to the World Bank, OECD, the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Japan. He published and edited a number of books on international economic issues and is an author and co-author of numerous articles in professional journals. His recent book publications in English include Emerging Global Trade Governance, co-editor, Routledge, 2018, East Asian Integration, co-editor, Routledge, 2019 and others.