On 12 February 2017, during his academic visit to Tokyo, NISCSS President Wu Shicun was interviewed by Takashi Okada, a journalist of Kyodo News Agency, and shared his views on various topics, including the current situation in the South China Sea, Japan's South China Sea policy and China-ASEAN relations.

Wu also paid a call on Guo Yan, a minister at the Chinese Embassy in Japan, and discussed institutional academic cooperation with Hiroshi Terashima, executive director of Japanese Ocean Policy Research Foundation.