Geopolitics and Soft Power: Japan's Cultural Policy and Cultural Diplomacy in Asia

Japan's cultural policy and cultural diplomacy in Asia has changed dramatically over the past one hundred years, from actively introducing and imposing Japanese culture during its empire-building period, to essentially avoiding the promotion of Japanese culture in Asia for most of the postwar period due to fears of being seen once again as engaged in cultural imperialism, and more recently, to supporting and encouraging the export of Japanese contemporary culture and lifestyle in order to attain “soft power.” Looking at the fluctuations in Japan's cultural policy over these three periods allows us to understand how Japan has used cultural policy to further its geopolitical goals and more basically how it has viewed the role of “culture” in the context of its relations with Asian neighbors. In a broader sense, the Japanese experience shows that cultural policy, even when inward-looking, is not isolated from a country's geopolitical position and its ambitions in the world, regardless of the political system under which it operates.     

Contesting soft power: Japanese popular culture in East and Southeast Asia

During the last two decades, Japanese popular culture industrieshave massively penetrated East Asia's markets and their productshave been widely disseminated and consumed. In this region,Japan has recently emerged as a cultural power, in additionto representing an industrial forerunner and model. The aimof this article is to explore the connection between popularculture and soft power by analyzing the activities of the Japanesepopular culture industries in East Asia, and by examining theimages their products disseminates. This study is based on exportdata, market surveys, and interviews with media industry personneland consumers in five cities in East Asia, arguing that theimpact of the Japanese popular culture lies in shaping thisregion's cultural markets and in disseminating new images ofJapan, but not in exerting local influence or in creating Japanese-dominated‘spheres of influence’. Received for publication December 18, 2006. Accepted for publication May 10, 2007.