Céline PAJON
Research Fellow,
Head of Japan Research,
Coordinator of the Program on Pacific Islands,
Center for Asian Studies, Ifri
Research Interests:
- Japanese foreign and defense policy
- International relations and geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific
- French and European approaches to the Indo-Pacific and Pacific Islands
Celine Pajon is Head of Japan Research at the Center for Asian Studies of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Paris, where she has been a Research Fellow since 2008. She also coordinates the research program on Pacific Islands, set up in March 2022. Céline is a Senior Researcher with the Japan Chair at Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) and an International Research Fellow with the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS) in Tokyo. Her area of expertise is Japan’s foreign and defense policy, as well as geostrategic dynamics of the Indo-Pacific area, including the position of France and Europe in the region, and their policies vis à vis the Pacific Islands. A graduate from the Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and Sciences Po Lyon, Céline also studied in Waseda University (Tokyo) and Osaka University.
She tweets @CelinePajon
This paper documents new features of Japan's diplomacy that tends to gradually integrate Africa into Japan's strategic interests.
France’s current presidential campaign has created an unprecedented situation fuelled by revelations and a total absence of restraint, but it has not truly taken account of the disruptions of the last year: Brexit, the attempted coup in Turkey, the election of Donald Trump, the recapturing of...
Despite being geographically distant, France and Japan share a number of converging interests.
This essay examines the need for growing coordination between the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) to better cope with gray-zone situations.
Coping with “gray zone” situations has in recent years become the core security challenge for Japan. Since September 2012, Beijing has been challenging Japan’s sovereign control of the Senkaku Islands by regularly sending law-enforcement vessels into Japanese territorial waters and...
What will become of US foreign policy under Donald Trump? A selection of Ifri researchers has come together to offer their thoughts on this question. Our experts cover an array of topics through 14 contributions, ranging from the future Sino-American relations, through US engagement in the...
China’s rise, US rebalancing in Asia, historic defense reforms in Japan, the adoption of new Guidelines for bilateral cooperation: the Japan-US alliance has reached a turning point in its history.
Nationalism appears to be an important part of the growing frictions between China and Japan.
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Asia is now a nerve center for global economic activity and a theatre of some of the most pressing security concerns of our time. So important has Asia become to global affairs today, and ostensibly for the decades to come, that many have already dubbed the 21st Century as the “Asian Century”....
Sino-Japanese relations have deteriorated since Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping came to power.