The second in the Deglobalisation Essay Series paper, “Deglobalisation May Slow Down Economic Growth and Institutional Changes” explains that since the world economy is highly interlinked, deglobalisation will further deepen the gap between countries that are major economies and developing economies.

The first in the five Deglobalisation Essay Series, “Open Strategic Autonomy: The European Approach for Stable Supply Chains” looks into how the European Union has used the concept of open strategic autonomy to address the risks of political and economic dependencies and ensure stable supply chains.

The event report for the third Women in Japan webinar series, ‘Women in Japan: Breakthroughs in Female Business Leadership’, focused on the business aspects of the gender situation in Japan.

The paper describes the implications of the 2022 Upper House Election for the major political parties following the death of former PM Shinzo Abe.

KAS Japan Country Representative Rabea Brauer was interviewed by German Media on 8 and 9 July following the shooting and later the death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In this paper, the author expresses his opinions about the current status and future issues of the German-Japanese energy and environmental cooperation in light of his previous experiences.

This conference report summarises the key take-aways and recommendations from the International Leadership Conference ‘Universe to Equiverse: Start the Ripple’, jointly organised with TalentNomics India, held from 9-10 December 2021.

This report is an offshoot of the The Path to Success: How Women-Owned Businesses Transform in the Era of Digitalisation Volume 1 and 2 and takes a closer look at how, through alternative financing models, digitalisation can expand women-owned SMEs’ financing options.

With the movement for gender equality gaining momentum around the world, the gender situation in Japan is drawing attention both domestically and internationally. KAS Japan will hold a series of events titled, ‘Women in Japan’, to explore current developments in Japan’s gender environment. Our third webinar, ‘Women in Japan: Breakthroughs in Women Business Leadership’ will focus on the business aspect out of the three pillars of politics, business, and society. We will focus on Germany, a country which has historically similar views on gender roles to Japan but is more advanced in gender equality. Through Germany’s evolving policies, we can learn pragmatic and realistic next steps for Japan. During the webinar, we intend to discuss possible policy recommendations, which – once formulated – help to foster change to improve the current situation in Japan for future women business leaders.

The papers in this volume—Age of Ferment: Developments in Asian–European Trade Relations— examine the role of trade in facilitating recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.