The Japan Society of Northern California will present “The Year Ahead Part I: Japan in Asia: Political Outlook for 2010 and Beyond” on Tuesday, March 9, at 6:30 p.m. (registration and reception at 6 p.m.) in the 11th Floor Assembly Hall at Union Bank, 400 California St. in downtown San Francisco.

President Barack Obama said in a November 2009 joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, “In a few months we will be marking the 50th anniversary of our alliance … that has served our people so well and has provided peace and security for the region in an unprecedented way. That anniversary … represents an important opportunity to step back and reflect on what we have achieved and celebrate our friendship, but also find ways to renew this alliance it and refresh it for the 21st century.”

With the approaching anniversary of the revised Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, what are the Hatoyama administration’s plans to “refresh” that connection, and how will Hatoyama address Japan’s role in Asia while moving toward a greater Japan-U.S. global partnership?

Four top international relations specialists — Dr. Michael Green, Dr. William Overholt, Dr. Jun Saito and Dr. Robert Weiner — will discuss the future of the two countries’ alliance and share their predictions on Japan’s role in Asia and beyond in the year ahead.

Green is a senior adviser and holds the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as well as being an associate professor of international relations at Georgetown University. He served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) from January 2004 to December 2005.

He joined the NSC in 2001 as director of Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, and Australia/New Zealand. From 1997 to 2000, he was senior fellow for Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directed the Independent Task Force on Korea and study groups on Japan and security policy in Asia. He served as senior adviser in the Office of Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of Defense in 1997 and as consultant to the same office until 2000.

Green speaks fluent Japanese and spent over five years in Japan working as a staff member of the National Diet, as a journalist for Japanese and American newspapers, and as a consultant for U.S. business.

Overholt is a senior research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He joined Asia Programs in July 2008 and conducts research on development and governance issues. As the former director of RAND’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy, he held a distinguished chair at the center.

He is the author of “America and Asia: The Coming Transformation of Asian Geopolitics,” as well as “The Rise of China,” which won the Mainichi News/Asian Affairs Research Center Special Book Prize.

In 1976, he founded the semi-annual Global Assessment, with Zbigniew Brzezinski, and edited it until 1988. He has also spent 21 years running research teams for investment banks, including Nomura Securities, Bankers Trust, and BankBoston, mostly in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Saito is assistant professor of political science at Yale University. At Yale, he teaches courses on Japanese politics, international relations in East Asia, and comparative political institutions. His research focuses on the institutional determinants of representation and redistribution, in particular how choices of constitutional structures and electoral institutions translate into redistributive consequences.

His co-authored article with Yusaku Horiuchi won the 2004 Alan Rosenthal Award from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association. He is a former member of the Japanese House of Representatives (2002-2003).

Weiner, the moderator, is assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey. His research and teaching focus on Japanese and East Asian politics, political parties and elections, democratic institution-building and design, and game theory and general research methods.

Prior to joining NPS, Weiner was an assistant professor in the Government Department of Cornell University. He has held research fellowships at Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations and Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and visiting researcher positions in the Law Department of Keio University (Tokyo).

The program is co-sponsored by the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim and the World Affairs Council.

The cost is $12 general, $6 for Japan Society members, members of co-sponsoring organizations, and students with valid ID. Advance registration is strongly recommended for building security purposes. The deadline to RSVP is Thursday, March 4, 2010.

For more information, visit www.usajapan.org.