Diplomacy, Image, and Branding
The reason for this is that the world has become increasingly democratized. That is, public opinion now enjoys much greater influence on diplomacy than before.
It may be true that in times past, ordinary folks, such as the famous Kuma-san and his buddy Hattsuan in rakugo comic storytelling, had no contact whatsoever with diplomacy. But if you were to suggest such a thing now, you would really get a laugh.
What we have now is an era in which diplomacy at the national level is affected dramatically by the climate of opinion arising from the average person. And that is exactly why we want pop culture, which is so effective in penetrating throughout the general public, to be our ally in diplomacy.
To put this another way, one part of diplomacy lies in having a competitive brand image, so to speak. Now more than ever, it is impossible for this to stay entirely within the realm of the work of diplomats. It is necessary for us to draw on assistance from a broad spectrum of people who are involved in Japanese culture.
And so, I am speaking to you here today to urge you to join with us in polishing the Japan gbrand.h
Since I was appointed Minster for Foreign Affairs, I have given a lot of thought to the question of what the Japanese brand really is, as well as what kind of country Japan is, and I have taken up these topics before in other speeches I have given.
I want to introduce that to you now, saying first off that by no means does Japan have a weak brand image.
On the contrary, a recent survey conducted by an American university and the BBC inquired about which countries around the world have a positive influence, revealing that of 33 countries polled, no less than 31 indicated Japan as having a positive influence. No other country in this survey enjoyed the support of such an overwhelming majority of countries. Japan was far and away the highest-ranked country.
There is even a British specialist who conducts surveys which measure the brand strength of individual countries, by treating them as one kind of corporation for the purposes of the survey.
In those surveys, too, we find Japan ranked just under Germany, and higher than France, with a ranking of seventh of all countries included. Japan was the only Asian nation to make the top ten. I would argue, then, that what we need to do now is to build on this foundation and attract people to Japanese culture, whether modern or that handed down from antiquity.