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Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes Japan’s UNESCO diplomacy around 1972, focusing on how the Japanese government understood the notion of "universality" in the World Heritage Convention. It argues that Japan’s interpretation reveals a deeper tension between national interests and UNESCO’s universal values.

Paper long abstract

The Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (commonly known as the World Heritage Convention) was adopted at the UNESCO General Conference in 1972 and entered into force in 1975. As of August 2025, 196 State Parties have ratified the Convention, and 1,248 World Heritage sites have been inscribed – 972 cultural, 235 natural, and 41 mixed. In Japan, public interest in the initiative has remained strong, with 21 cultural and 5 natural sites registered to date. More recently, the Japanese government has recognized the political significance of World Heritage inscription, particularly regarding cultural properties, and has actively promoted “World Heritage diplomacy”, led primarily by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite this, Japan did not ratify the Convention until 1992, twenty years after its adoption, becoming the 125th State Party. Previous explanations for this delay have mainly cited domestic reasons: Japan’s existing legal framework for cultural property protection led the Agency for Cultural Affairs to see limited merit in ratification, while the Ministry of Finance expressed concerns over financial contributions. However, these accounts overlook the deeper epistemological factors shaping Japan’s delayed accession. This paper, therefore, examines Japan’s UNESCO diplomacy during the period surrounding the adoption of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, aiming to elucidate the Japanese government’s initial conceptualization of World Heritage. Particular focus is placed on how the notion of “universality”, a core principle of World Heritage framework, was understood and interpreted by Japanese officials. Through this analysis, the paper argues that an inherent tension between national interests and universal values is embedded within UNESCO’s World Heritage initiative.

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Paper short abstract

In the 1970s, Japan’s Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) accepted the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty. This shift was not simply a turn to realism or hawkishness, but reflected détente and broader changes in social democratic foreign policy, while the DSP retained its democratic socialist identity.

Paper long abstract

In postwar Japan, foreign policy was long structured by an ideological confrontation between conservative support for the Japan–U.S. alliance (Anpo) and leftist advocacy of unarmed neutrality. In the 1970s, however, this opposition underwent a significant transformation. While the Liberal Democratic Party maintained long-term rule and the Japan Socialist Party remained the principal opposition force, movements toward accepting the Japan–U.S. security framework emerged from other opposition parties. Most notably, this shift was embodied by the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP).

Conventional explanations for the DSP’s acceptance of Anpo emphasize its alleged turn toward political realism or increasing hawkishness. Although not entirely unfounded, such interpretations are overly simplistic. During this period, the DSP continued to affirm its ideological commitment to democratic socialism and actively strengthened ties with West European social democratic parties. Far from abandoning ideology, the party increasingly presented itself as a leading representative of democratic socialism in Japan and remained within the broader framework of the political left.

This paper argues that the DSP’s shift toward accepting Anpo in the 1970s should be understood in the context of global détente and changing priorities within social democratic foreign policy. Certainly, the end of the Vietnam War reduced fears that Japan would be drawn into U.S. military conflicts, while China and the Soviet Union’s acceptance of the Japan–U.S. security arrangement contributed to a more favorable domestic climate toward the alliance. Yet equally significant was the DSP’s growing emphasis on emerging global issues, particularly the North–South problem, to which the party devoted exceptional political energy.

In this respect, the DSP’s stance resembled that of West German Social Democrats under Willy Brandt, who reconciled social democracy with NATO while promoting international solidarity through initiatives such as the Brandt Commission on North–South issues. The DSP’s acceptance of Anpo thus reflected a broader trend within contemporary social democracy: prioritizing cooperation on global issues over asserting leftist distinctiveness in national security policy.

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This paper elucidates the purpose behind the shift in Japanese refugee policy in 1979. Allowing them to settle down in Japan was a tool and catalyst to foster nascent inter-state goodwill with ASEAN and eventually to become a permanent member of the Uited Nation Security Council.

Paper long abstract

This paper elucidates the purpose behind the shift in Japanese refugee policy in 1979. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 and the establishment of communist governments in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos –commonly known as Indochina – generated the sudden mass migration of refugees to Western countries. The stance of the newly established communist governments in these countries worried many people, and a large number of people undertook the dangerous journey to seek temporary asylum in nearby countries. In the face of the refugee crisis, the ASEAN countries opened their doors to the number of refugees fleeing the region, and the US, in the Carter administration, which created a foreign policy agenda that centered on human rights, took on a proactive role to accept these people. Although Japan, as a major economic power in the world, contributed significant financial support both to the UNHCR and Vietnam to suppress the refugees, it had never accepted asylum seekers into the country. But in 1979, the number of refugees fleeing their countries reached its peak, and Japan finally ended up admitting some refugees from these countries. Despite the burden of accommodating such a large influx of refugees, why would Japan go through the trouble of accepting refugees in the country? Drawing on newly discovered primary sources from Japan, this paper elaborates on Japan’s diplomatic stance in the wave of structural shift in international politics during the détente in the Cold War. Caring for human rights was by no means the main motivation for Japan to accept refugees. Rather, allowing them to settle down in Japan was a tool and catalyst to foster nascent inter-state goodwill with Southeast Asia and eventually to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

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Paper short abstract

This paper reexamines a major mid-1970s crisis in Japan–South Korea relations, arguing it stemmed not from colonial memory but from Cold War realignments. Divergent responses to structural shifts created tensions that were intensified by two high-profile political incidents.

Paper long abstract

After numerous rounds of negotiations, Japan and South Korea finally normalized their relations in 1965. Existing scholarship generally portrays post-1965 bilateral relations as largely conflict-free, aside from occasional disputes over issues of colonial memory, which became major stumbling blocks in the post–Cold War era. This paper challenges that characterization by examining a major crisis in Japan–South Korea relations in the mid-1970s. The crisis was unrelated to Japan`s colonial rule over Korea but was so severe that it prompted direct intervention by the United States. The immediate catalysts for the crisis were two dramatic incidents unrelated to colonial rule: the abduction of South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung from Tokyo by South Korean intelligence agents in August 1973, and the assassination attempt on President Park Chung-hee in August 1974 by a South Korean resident of Japan.

While these events sharply escalated tensions, this paper argues that the roots of the crisis lay in broader structural transformations in the Cold War order in Asia. Focusing on shifts in U.S. strategy under the Nixon administration—including the Guam Doctrine, which placed greater responsibility for regional defence on American allies, the normalization of U.S.–China relations, and détente with the Soviet Union—the paper analyses how these changes altered the strategic environments of Japan and South Korea in divergent ways. It contends that differences in the roles the two countries occupied within the Cold War system produced contrasting perceptions of these structural shifts, generating friction, mistrust, and competing security priorities. These underlying tensions were then intensified by the two high-profile incidents.

By situating the mid-1970s crisis within the context of Cold War realignments, this paper revises prevailing narratives of post-1965 Japan–South Korea relations and highlights the importance of structural factors unrelated to historical memory, in shaping bilateral relations.