On April 21, ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app welcomed the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dick Schoof, to Mita Campus for a lecture titled ¡°The Netherlands and Japan: The Future of a Historical Partnership in Times of Global Upheaval.¡± The event was attended by a delegation of officials from the Dutch government including the ambassador of the Netherlands to Japan and other embassy officials. ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app was represented by President Kohei Itoh, as well as many ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app students, faculty, and staff who also participated in the event.
President Itoh started his opening remarks by giving a warm welcome to Prime Minister Schoof and touched on the deep historical ties between Japan and the Netherlands. The close relationship between these countries has served as a bridge between Japan and the West, even leading to the establishment of ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app, which was originally founded as a school for Dutch studies. President Itoh also mentioned about the productive academic exchanges and cooperative initiatives currently achieved between ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app and a number of Dutch universities through successful partnership programs.
In his speech, Prime Minister Schoof underscored the need to promote economic security and resilience in light of recent geopolitical developments, especially in the current age of an increasingly interconnected world. The economic and trade ties which constitute the core of the over 400-year-old bilateral relationship between Japan and the Netherlands are no exception. He also noted that close transnational and interpersonal collaboration is indispensable to uphold universal values such as freedom, justice, and democracy, and to address shared global challenges related to the development of high-tech and life science sectors, food security, and energy transition. In closing, Prime Minister Schoof encouraged students to further strengthen the cooperative relationship between Japan and the Netherlands, where the ideas and spirit of Yukichi Fukuzawa, ´ºÓêÖ±²¥app¡¯s founder, still live on.
After this, Professor Yuichi Hosoya from the Faculty of Law moderated in a conversation between the prime minister and students, where they covered a wide range of topics, including Europe¡¯s response to the new global political and economic order, future cooperation between Europe and Japan, population movements within Europe, the global development of Dutch agricultural technology in response to climate change, as well as their impressions of the ongoing World Expo taking place in Osaka, Japan.