BOOK TALK: KINKAKUJI AND KITAYAMA: SPACE, PLACE, MONUMENTS AND MEMORY IN JAPAN 1222-1994. 9/10, 7:00-8:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Modern Japan History Association. Speakers: author, Thomas Conlan, Professor of East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University; Mimi Yiengpruksawan, Professor of Art History, Yale University; Moderator: Nick Kapur, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Camden. PURCHASE BOOK
Geraldine Javier’s “State of the Nations” Exhibition at Silverlens Gallery, UNITED STATES. 9/10-10/24, 2026
CURATOR'S TALK: STROLLING TOGETHER IN THE WORLD OF CHINESE ART. 9/15, 6:30-8:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: China Institute of America. Speakers: Annette Juliano, Research Associate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University; Alfreda Murck, Visiting Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University; David Sensabaugh, Head, Department of Asian Art, Yale University.
BOOK TALK: IN THE SHADOW OF EMPIRE: ART IN OCCUPIED JAPAN. 9/23, 3:30-5:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Department of History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES. Speaker: Alicia Volk, author, Professor, Japanese Art, Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland. PURCHASE BOOK
JapanHands is a free, online public resource highlighting Japan-focused organizations and events to (for) English-speaking audiences.
Through an online directory, an events calendar, and a newsletter, JapanHands says it "aims to cultivate a wider and more inclusive generation of 'Japan Hands' "—individuals with the knowledge, relationships, and experience to engage meaningfully in Japan’s interactions with the world community. It hopes to expose its viewers to a broad and sympathetic view of "things Japanese."
Organizations can register at no cost and post their events on the shared calendar. The public can freely access all listings, programs, and opportunities on the site. JapanHands is an open, inclusive hub for anyone interested in Japan-related activities in North America and beyond.
JapanHands is a passive site that depends upon the initiative of its viewers and participants to enroll their organizations and to publicize their events. Corrections and updates are also the responsibility of contributors.
Developed by the National Association of Japan-America Societies (NAJAS), in partnership with the American Friends of the International House of Japan (AFIHJ) and with generous seed funding from the United States–Japan Foundation, JapanHands represents a long-term investment in the infrastructure and public diplomacy that supports Japan’s engagement with the U.S. and the world.
Through these links, you can search the organization directory, browse for events, and subscribe to the newsletter for occasional updates. Here you can apply to list your organization in the directory. Currently, the directory is light on policy and academic organizations. Also not listed are the many Japanese governmental and business organizations that are in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles.
JapanGov.The official web portal of the Government of Japan, provides some information regarding Japan society, culture, and policy. Directory of ministries and agencies. N.B.: Always use the Japanese-language sites for detailed and up-to-date information.
Asia Policy Point is not publishing a newsletter this week, Congress is in recess, and President Trump will attend the NATO Summit the 7th and 8th in Turkey. Apart from NATO's 32 members, Ukraine will attend along with four of NATO's Indo-Pacific partner states -- Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- as well as Middle East partners Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. On the 8th, the IMF will release an update of its World Economic Outlook.
JAPAN’S AI START-UP ECOSYSTEM AND TRENDS IN VENTURE INVESTMENT. 7/6, Noon-1:00pm (BST), 7:00-8:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Japan Society-London. Speakers: James Riney, Founding Partner and CEO, Coral Capital; Jesper Koll, Expert Director, Monex Group and Japan Catalyst Fund; Bill Emmott, Visiting Fellow, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo.
CRITICAL MINERALS AND THE FUTURE OF KOREAN INDUSTRY. 7/7, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Korea Inter-Parliamentary Exchange Center (KIPEC). Speaker: Meredith Schwartz, Associate Fellow, Critical Minerals Security Program, CSIS.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spends billions of dollars annually to either control or exterminate people of all faiths. It is a strategic imperative for them. Christians, Buddhist, Muslims, Falun Gong, and more are seen as a threat to the control of China and the world by the CCP.
Japan has an immense diversity of garden designs, from animist-infused, prototypical stone arrangements placed in sacred groves, to extraordinary post-war innovations. Mansfield examines post-war shifts in attitudes towards the contemporary garden as they moved from status symbols and expressions of influence to spaces of healing, mediation, and connection to nature. The book contains brief essays from notable specialists in the fields of landscape design, garden aesthetics, and architecture, including Shyunmo Masuno, Japan’s leading garden designer.
Realizing Saudi Vision 2030: Governance,
Institutions and Human Capital Development
By the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (ABOUT)
A behind-the-scenes investigation into the current transformations taking place in Saudi Arabia. It comprises contributions from academics, researchers, policymakers and practitioners who have access to the decision-makers and relevant institutions in the country. Chapters focus on the remodeling of government entities, the creation of institutions, and the new opportunities made available for Saudis through human capital development initiatives, all key issues that are central to the Vision.
*Books purchased through the links here support Asia Policy Point*
Books selected on the APP website are not a sign of endorsement.
Miller and Chang expand on the history of the many Asian Heritage chefs who have prepared meals for the presidents at the White House, at State Dinners, on Presidential Yachts, and at Camp David. He explains that he was able to identify presidential chefs with roots in China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. His research is enriched by the biographies, memoirs, cookbooks, and news coverage of the early chefs, and by his own interviews with former and current White House chefs.
Chop Fry Watch Learn:
Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food
By Michelle T. King, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In 1949, a young Chinese housewife arrived in Taiwan and transformed herself from a novice to a natural in the kitchen. She launched a career as a cookbook author and television cooking instructor that would last four decades. Years later, in America, flipping through her mother’s copies of Fu Pei-mei’s Chinese cookbooks, King discovered more than the recipes to meals of her childhood. She found, in Fu’s story and in her food, a time when a generation of middle-class, female home cooks navigated the tremendous postwar transformations taking place across the world.
Simply Donabe: Japanese One-Pot Recipes
By Naoko Takei Moore, Owner, TOIRO
(Specializes in donabe and Japanese artisan products)
Donabe are the Japanese earthenware pots that have been used in Japan for centuries, and continue to be loved for their efficiency and beauty. Takei Moore showcases how you can create Japanese one-pot dishes at home. Recipes range from Sea Bream Shabu Shabu and Sweet and Sour Minced Pork Hotpot, to Egg Porridge and Miso-Simmered Ramen, as well as sides like Green Beans in Walnut Miso Cream and Quick-Pickled Napa Cabbage and sweet treats such as Sake-Kasu Pound Cake and Matcha Ice Cream.
*Books purchased through the links here support Asia Policy Point*
Books selected on the APP website are not a sign of endorsement.
Brazinsky argues that neither the PRC nor the DPRK would have survived as socialist states without the ideal of Sino-North Korean friendship. Chinese and North Korean leaders encouraged mutual empathy and sentimental attachments between their citizens and then used these emotions to strengthen popular commitment to socialist state building. He explains why the unique relationship that Beijing and Pyongyang forged during the Korean War remained important throughout the Cold War and how it continues to influence the international relations of East Asia today.
Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise
and Fall of an Imperial Region
By Hannah Shepherd, Assistant Professor of History,
Shepherd examines the shared histories of Pusan and Fukuoka over the eight decades from Japan's forced opening of Korea's ports in 1876 to the end of the Korean War in 1953. Wars, colonization, and capitalist industrialization forged intimate connections between the two, knitting together an imperial region that transcended its maritime boundaries. She challenges traditional views of empire and urban growth and shows how local networks, migration, and capital flows shaped the region's exploitative and uneven geographies.
Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks:
Russian Intelligence and Putin's Secret War
By Sean Wiswesser, Former Senior Operations Officer,
Using historical examples and firsthand accounts, this book reveals the tactics employed by the three main services of Russia's intelligence apparatus: the SVR, GRU, and FSB. Wiswesser's unparalleled expertise comes from years of sitting across from Russian intelligence officers, operating overseas, and using their own methods against them. He breaks down ten key elements of their tradecraft, offering invaluable insights.
Japanese Rebels: Non-Conformists in a Conformist Society
By David McNeill, Former Correspondent, The Independent
and The Economist
&
Stephen McClure, Freelance Journalist, Former Asia Bureau Chief, Billboard
Japan is often seen through the lens of an unusually resilient stereotype that it is a nation of risk-averse conformists. McNeill and McClure deconstruct that stereotype by showing that there have always been Japanese people who have rejected the status quo, challenged injustice, and fought for personal freedom.
*Books purchased through the links here support Asia Policy Point*
Books selected on the APP website are not a sign of endorsement.
GLOBAL SAMURAI CONFERENCE. 4/10-11, HYBRID. Sponsors: British Museum and SOAS. Speakers: Filippo Cervelli (SOAS); Rosina Buckland (British Museum); Oleg Benesch (University of York); Joe Nickols (British Museum); Edward Boyle (Nichibunken); Rebekah Clements (Autonomous University of Barcelona and ICREA); Helen Macnaughtan (SOAS); Birgit Tremml-Werner (Stockholm University); Satona Suzuki (SOAS); Nam-lin Hur (University of British Columbia); Chika Tonooka (Cambridge University); Luke Gartlan (University of St Andrews); Sarah Thal (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Mark Ravina (University of Texas Austin); Sven Saaler (Sophia University); Michele Monserrati (Smith College); Maria Framke (University of Erfurt); Tatiana Linkhoeva (New York University); Ignacio López-Calvo (University of California Merced); Hiromu Nagahara (MIT); Natasha Bennett (Royal Armouries); Julie Reynolds and Emile de Bruijn (National Trust); Sarah Panzer (Missouri State University); Clemens Büttner (University of Heidelberg); Ethan Mark (Leiden University); Thomas D. Conlan and Christina Lee (Princeton University). This event is part of the public programme supporting the exhibition Samurai (open until 4 May).PURCHASE EXHIBITION CATALOG: https://amzn.to/4mqEJ1h
SAMURAI: THE MAKING OF A GLOBAL ICON. 4/23, 5:30–6:30pm (DST), 12:30-1:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: British Museum. Speakers: Satona Suzuki, Senior Lecturer in Japanese and Modern Japanese History at SOAS; Oleg Benesch, Professor and Head of the Department of History at the University of York and co-author of the exhibition book, Samurai; Matt Alt, co-founder AltJapan, a Tokyo-based company that specialises in localisation and author of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World (2021). This event is part of the public programme supporting the exhibition Samurai (open until 4 May).
FORTHCOMING art two special issues of the Japan Review focused on the samurai.
And if you had enough of all this Samurai stuff--most of which is made up for Western consumption--see here for a humorous take: LORD IT'S THE SAMURAI.
BOOK TALK: SIMPLY DONABE! (JAPANESE CLAY POT COOKING). 4/ 19, Noon-2:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Kinokuniya New York. Speaker: author Ms. Naoko Takei Moore, owner of TOIRO, an online and brick-and-mortar shop in West Hollywood that specializes in Japanese kitchen goods. PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/4dPUYTd
BOOK TALK: IMPERIAL ANIMATIONS IN TRANSPACIFIC CONTEMPORARY ART. 5/4, 9:00-10:30pm (EDT), 9:00-10:30am (HKT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Centre for Cultural Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Speaker: author Namiko Kunimoto, Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies, Associate Professor, Department of History of Art, Ohio State University; Moderator: Prof. SaeHim Park (CUHK). PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/4bImyzf
*REMAKING THE ACADEMIC MUSEUM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. 4/2, 8:00-9:15am (JST), 7:00-8:15pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Asia Society. Speakers: James Steward, Director, Princeton University Art Museum; Kit Brooks, Curator of Asian Art, Princeton University Art Museum.
*FROM KIRIN TO CASA BRUTUS: HISTORY OF JAPANESE DESIGN. 4/2, 6:30-8:00pm (JST), 5:30-7:00am (EST), HYBRID. Sponsor: Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS), Temple University, Japan. Speakers: Ian Lynam | Associate Professor of Graphic Design, Temple University Japan; Moderator: Benoit Hardy-Chartrand | Senior Lecturer Temple University Japan & ICAS Faculty Fellow.
By Erik Augustin Palm, Japan Times, Mar 28, 2026 Scathing review of the Japanese government's exhibition of the Japan Sui Collection in Kyoto and Paris that is meant to showcase Japanese regional crafts and cuisine framed around the concept of sui (an Edo Period [1603-1867] concept of aesthetic refinement).
Official Japan's penchant for dealing with the West by leaning into Orientalism can be startling. It is so ingrained that Japanese embassies and consulates still display sensoga, the carely controlled statist art of 1930s wartime Japan. Japan has a vibrant modern art community. It is a shame that it is not promoted more.
Isamu Noguchi is a household name thanks to his abstract totem-like sculptures, Vitra’s bestselling glass Coffee Table and the ubiquitous Akari paper lamps. Still, the Japanese-American designer maintained that his best projects never saw the light of day. He harboured ambitions to be an urban planner, particularly to make playgrounds, but city officials wouldn’t hear of it. Those torpedoed ideas, such as this swing set, are the subject of Noguchi’s New York, an exhibition at The Noguchi Museum in Queens, which runs until 13 September.
This three-piece swing was originally conceived in 1940 for a playground in Hawaii, which would also have included a curved slide and a jungle gym. That plan was derailed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a year later, with Noguchi spending seven months in an internment camp in Arizona. Later, he pitched the scheme in New York but was unsuccessful; a version of the design finally went up in Atlanta in 1975. With hindsight, everyone can agree that Noguchi should not have had to work so hard to bring play to public spaces.
On March 19, 2026, the White House held a dinner honoring Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The menu was carrot ginger velouté, Maine lobster au gratin with corn puree and asparagus, and strawberry and vanilla cream gateau.
Only one celebrity attended. This was Japanese golf legend Mr. Hideki Matsuyama, Otherwise attendees were CEOs of major American companies, senior government officials, and two full-time lobbyists who are Trump loyalists. Only three Japanese CEOs of American operations were at the dinner: Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Toyota. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group CEO and founder, was the only corporate head leading from Japan.
Notably, there was not one State, Defense or Commerce official tasked with or expert in Japan or the Indo-Pacific. There were no American second tier officials to match with their Japanese counterparts who were present at the dinner.
Scholars, think tankers, and nonprofit executives expert on Japan who "manage" the relationship were also not present. It is very unusual to have such a dinner without attendees familiar with Japanese politics, economy, culture, and history.
Takaichi cleverly used a male interpreter to project power to Trump. He heard a strong male voice in "her" comments. The President had a woman interpreter, whose high-pitched voice subtly diminished him to the Japanese. She was, however, likely to have made Trump more understandable to Takaichi.
Another notable feature of the dinner, and indeed the visit ,is that Trump never once said the Prime Minister's name. "Takaichi" was just too much to say for the President.
Full guest list for White House dinner for the Japanese prime minister
1 The President of the United States Donald Trump
2 Her Excellency TAKAICHI Sanae, Prime Minister of Japan
3 Mr. Andrew Abboud, Las Vegas Sands Corp. Vice President of Government Affairs
4 Dr. Miriam Adelson, spouse of the late Sheldon Adelson, founder Las Vegas Sands Corp
5 Mr. AKAHORI Takeshi, Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs
6 His Excellency AKAZAWA Ryosei, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry
7 Mr. Jim Allen, chairman of Hard Rock International
8 Mr. Cristiano Amon, CEO and president, Qualcomm
9 Mr. ARAI Masayoshi, Director-General, Trade Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
10 Mr. ARIMA Yutaka, Director-General, Foreign Policy Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
11 The Honorable Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury
12 The Honorable James Blair, White House, Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs
13 The Honorable Pam Bondi, Attorney General
14 Mr. Greg Brockman and Mrs. Anna Brockman, OpenAI co-founder.
15 The Honorable Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior
16 The Honorable Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor
17 The Honorable Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation
18 Mr. Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO;
19 The Honorable George Glass, Ambassador of the United States to Japan and Mrs. Amy Glass
20 Mr. David Goeckeler, Sandisk CEO;
21 The Honorable Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative
22 The Honorable Bill Hagerty, United States Senator from Tennessee and Mrs. Christine Hagerty
23 Mr. HAYASHI Makoto, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister
24 The Honorable Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War
25 Mr. ICHIKAWA Keiichi, National Security Advisor
26 Mr. IIDA Yuji, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister
27 Mr. IIJIMA Isao [飯島勲], Special Advisor to the Cabinet, noted Japanese political fixer
28 Mr. Takajiro Ishikawa, President & CEO of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America
29 Mr. KANO Koji, Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs
30 Dr. Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir
31 Mr. Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO
32 Mr. KUMAGAI Naoki, Director General of the North American Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
33 The Honorable Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the Small Business Administration
34 Mr. Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril
35 The Honorable Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce
36 Mr. MATANO Motosada, Director-General, Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
37 Mr. Hideki Matsuyama, Japanese golf pro, first Asian to win the Masters
38 The Honorable Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education
Two irreconcilable views of patriotism were given their classic expressions by two Englishmen: Lord Byron, the poet (1788-1824), and Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer and jack-of-all-literary-trades (1709-84). Byron said, “He who loves not his country can love nothing.” And Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s patriotism is unabashed and fervent. He is doing all in his very considerable power to transmit it, via education, to the nation at large. His first stint as prime minister produced a revision to the Fundamental Law of Education in 2006 that charges schools with cultivating in children “an attitude that respects tradition and culture, and loves the nation and homeland that have fostered them.” He vowed at the time to “push ahead with education rebuilding that will … nurture people with vision and hope and build a dignified and beautiful country.”
Japan’s beauty was beautifully sung by the country’s most ancient poets, those of the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries whose work was anthologized in the famous Manyoshu collection, dating to the latter half of the eighth century. Among the poets were emperors and subjects, courtiers and lowly soldiers, men and women. Their shared love for their country at times seems almost erotic. The very mountains love one another: “Mount Kagu strove with Mount Miminashi/ for the love of Mount Unebi.” And in any human love, the nation seems ever present, a silent but indispensable third party: “On the vast lake of Omi/ you boatmen that come rowing/ close by the shore,/ ply not too hard your oars …/ lest you should startle into flight/ the birds beloved of my dear husband!” So sang Empress Yamato-hime, consort of Emperor Tenji (reigned 661-71).
As the Manyoshu era faded, so did patriotism. Warriors supplanted aristocrats, military rule marginalized the Imperial house, and Japan itself, beginning in the late 12th century, crumbled into a chaos of warring feudal domains. Poetry persisted, but the self-sacrificing loyalty it celebrated was to one’s domain, one’s lord — not one’s country. There was no country.
Unification in 1600 under the Tokugawa Shogunate produced no upsurge of national pride. The official morality it enforced was Confucian — hardly a native plant. Modern Japanese patriotism is rooted in simmering opposition to Confucianism, tainted by its very foreignness, and to the shoguns, damnable as usurpers. (Buddhism, then in eclipse, scarcely counted.) Japan had an indigenous religion: Shinto, the “way of the gods.” And it had its rightful ruler: the sacred Emperor, descended from the Sun Goddess. Where were they? Shinto was nowhere, all but forgotten. The Emperor languished in dignified but impotent exile in Kyoto, the old capital.
Vanguard teacher of generations of patriots to come was Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801). Did he know what he would spawn, this most gentle and erudite of scholars? Among his intellectual progeny were the kamikaze pilots of World War II, who drew inspiration from his famous poem: “What is the spirit of Yamato’s (Japan’s) ancient land?/ It is like the wild cherry blossoms,/ radiant in the sun.” The kamikaze poet who wrote on the eve of his suicide mission, “If only we might fall/ like cherry blossoms in spring —/ so pure and radiant!” was surely thinking of him.
“Our august country,” wrote Norinaga, “is the august country of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami. It is the beautiful and magnificent august country superior to all other countries, so people’s hearts and actions, as well as the words they speak, are straightforward and elegant. In the past, the realm was governed peacefully and without incident, so that, unlike in other countries, there was not the least trace of anything bothersome or troubling. But then writing came over from China.”
Thus were the seeds of corruption sown. Japan ceased to be fully Japanese. It became quasi-Chinese. Following the way of the Chinese sages, it lost the way of the Japanese gods. Of them Norinaga wrote: “All things in this world, such as the changing of the seasons, the falling of the rain and the gusting of the wind, as well as the various good and bad things that happen to countries and people, all are entirely the august works of the gods. Among the gods there are good ones and bad ones. … They cannot be understood with ordinary reason. … The fact that many things go against ordinary reason, such as good people meeting misfortune and bad people prospering, is all because of the deeds of these gods. In foreign countries, though, there is no correct transmission of the age of the gods, so they do not understand this.”
In short: A “beautiful and magnificent august country” is one thing; the happiness of people is something else altogether and, in fact, quite beside the point. The gods are the gods — there is no holding them to account. The people’s lot — the people’s joy, if only they know it — is to know the gods as best they can be known, and to serve them as best they can be served. For Norinaga’s disciples of the first two generations after his death, that meant “revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians” — a truculent challenge to the tottering shogunate which, having usurped Imperial rule, now stood helpless against the ever more boldly intruding Western “barbarians.”
Norinaga with his writing brush, his disciples with their swords, would gladly have thrust Japan back to its Manyoshu past, if only they could. They couldn’t, of course. The Meiji Era (1868-1912) that began with an Imperial Restoration modernized, industrialized, capitalized and militarized Japan far more than it “restored” it, if restoration means return to a pristine state. Norinaga’s ideal was the misty “land of the gods.” Meiji’s was “rich country, strong army.”
And Abe’s? He, perhaps no less than his Meiji predecessors, is remaking Japan — into a “dignified and beautiful country,” he says, vague as always as to what he means; hopefully not a neo-“land of the gods.” “Land of the gods” makes for pretty mythology but — as history teaches at such cost — very ugly politics.
BY Taku Tamaki, Lecturer in International Relations, Loughborough University, UK, Newsweek, 4/29/17
Much has been made of Japan’s recent turn away from pacifism and growing military muscle, but Tokyo is also extending its global reach in more subtle ways. Japan is especially serious about increasing its soft power, the ability to win over global partners with cultural and diplomatic affinity rather than coercion and sheer heft.
Tokyo has long busied itself building a national “brand”, an image that combines the supposed uniqueness of Japanese language, cuisine, and traditional hospitality with its postwar pacifism and reputation for technological prowess. The latest iteration of this project is the Cool Japan initiative, which capitalises on the international popularity of manga and anime to project the Japanese brand around the world.
But while this might all sound like very 21st-century stuff, the idea of packaging national culture into a political brand is a familiar one, and Japan has been doing it for decades—albeit in very different ways.
Before World War II, imperial Japan presented itself as the “liberator” of Asia, the only modernised Asian state to have escaped Western colonialism. This myth already contained the core elements of Cool Japan, depicting Japan as neither Asian nor Western but an exotic hybrid of Western modernity and Asian tradition. This deft act of national branding won it the 1940 Olympics—but as the country’s expansionist offensives in Asia ramped up in the late 1930s, the games were abandoned.
Yet remarkably, this myth of Japanese cultural uniqueness survived the devastating and humiliating defeat of August 1945. On the contrary, it was reinforced by Japan’s postwar pacifism and rapid reconstruction that began in the mid-1950s. Over the next few decades, Japan became the second-largest economy in the world, once again suggesting that it was a trailblazing standout in an otherwise backward Asia.
That approach paid off with the successful bid for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which this time actually happened.
The organisation that most actively promotes this mission today is the Japan Foundation, Japan’s answer to the British Council and a potential rival to China’s Confucius Institute. The foundation’s job is to promote Japanese language and culture, principally by engaging in international cultural exchange programmes and encouraging language learning.
Indeed, the Foundation, has been active in hosting Japanese language speech contests outside Japan, as well as conducting Japanese Language Proficiency Tests whereby learners can gain a certificate of Japanese language fluency. Furthermore, the Japan Foundation promotes cultural and academic exchanges between Japan and the outside world. And as the Japanese Foreign Ministry itself suggests, cultural exchanges help to lubricate diplomatic relations in general.
Abe Power On the face of it, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s much-touted economic revitalisation programme, known as Abenomics, has little to do with soft power. In its first incarnation as the Beautiful Country programme, the hallmark of Abe’s first term in 2006-7, this was a thoroughly domestic agenda of constitutional amendments, fiscal restructuring and economic deregulation.
But this wasn’t just an economic programme; it was also a nationalistic one, designed to turn domestic economic regeneration into an international display of supposedly distinctive Japanese attributes, not least diligence and resilience.
With patriotic education at home and cultural outreach abroad, Abe is turning the old myth of Japanese uniqueness into a different kind of nationalism. To be sure, he clearly believes that economic revitalisation and a renewed military are crucial prerequisites for rebuilding Japan’s self confidence. But he also knows that to truly win over the rest of the world, it has to win the hearts and minds of global consumers.
And so the Abe government is advancing a carefully calibrated image of a beautiful, vibrant Japan, simultaneously traditional and modern. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this was Abe’s in-person appearance as Super Mario at the closing ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics, heralding Toyko’s turn in 2020. It might have looked trivial, but in reality, it was the apex of a calculated, long-term propaganda exercise that will project Japanese influence as far as possible.
So the next time you pick up a manga comic from your local bookshop or grab a sushi roll off a conveyor belt, remember that you’re not just treating yourself – you’re also playing your part in a long and very considered political project.
By Michael Hoffman, author of 