 Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, and welcome to the afternoon session of the Japan Update. I'm Simon Avinal, director of the Japan Institute here at the ANU. And it's an absolute pleasure, actually, to have you at the Japan Update. And it's a pleasure to be chairing this panel this afternoon. In the morning session, we had some fascinating presentations about the challenges facing Japan's regions and its economy. We're going to shift gear in a big way now and move from the hard power of arbenomics, et cetera, to look at the spheres of soft power and cultural diplomacy in Japan. And I was thinking over lunch, maybe there are some solutions in soft power for some of the problems that we were discussing in the morning session. So to help us explore these questions, we're extremely lucky to have assembled three world leading experts in this area. We have Professor Christine Yano from the University of Hawaii. Christine is an anthropologist who studies the processes by which national cultures construct and sustain themselves, especially in forms of popular culture. She's done absolutely fascinating research on music and other forms of consumer goods, including the iconic Kitichan, who we'll be hearing about today, I think. Professor Yasushi Watanabe joins us from the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University, Shounan Fujisawa campus. Yasushi is also a cultural anthropologist who has written extensively on the topics of soft power, culture, and what he has called the age of public diplomacy. Professor Koichi Iwabuchi joins us from Monash University in Melbourne, where he is chair professor in cultural studies. Koichi is particularly interested in trans-Asian cultural connections and dialogues in a global perspective, as well as cultural diversity and multicultural questions in Japan and East Asia. And indeed, he has a book, Hot Off the Press, on these topics, 2015, entitled Resilient Borders and Cultural Diversity, Internationalism, Brand Nationalism, and Multiculturalism in Japan. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming our first speaker, Professor Christine Yanon. I'd like to thank Simon for this invitation. And indeed, this is a big leap. I'm not sure if it's a leap up or a leap down or some kind of lateral leap from this morning's session. But I'm so pleased to be here and so impressed by the audience in Australia and the kinds of enthusiasm and real and substantive questions by which people are engaging with the notion of updating information on Japan. So thank you. Thank you, Simon. Let me get started. So pink globalization, the spread of cute goods from Japan to other parts of the world has been a stronghold of consumption in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly with Hello Kitty as its mascot. And I just have to ask, does anybody in the room not know what Hello Kitty is? You can raise your hand. It's OK to out yourself. All right, just checking. All right, so that Japanese icon that has gone global represents some of those most far reaching aspects of kawaii or cute soft power. Since her birth by the Japanese corporation Sanrio in 1974, Hello Kitty has extended in the 1980s from the original target market of young girls to adult women, particularly with licensing agreements that have placed her image upon any number of goods. With Hello Kitty's introduction to the US market in 1976, followed by European markets in 1980, and official Asian markets in 1990, Hello Kitty's expanded global girl culture has made her one of the most widely recognized symbols of kawaii around the world. Hello Kitty contributes to what American journalist Douglas McGray has called, quote, Japan's gross national cool in 2002. Proof of Hello Kitty's broad global appeal was on display at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in 2014 to 2015 with the exhibition that I curated, Hello, Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty. This large scale exhibition gained widespread media coverage, particularly with the news item entitled Hello Kitty is not a cat. Based upon an interview with me, this news item, Simon, are you sure you were serious about this invitation? I will proceed. So this news item from the LA Times went viral, trending number one in the world during August 2014, only to be dethroned by the wedding of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. So these kinds of headlines proved great publicity for the exhibition, especially since marketing pundits, know well the magic of buzz, that is emotion, energy, excitement, and influence that surrounds a product by way of hyper amplified word of mouth message. So buzz suggests that a product is newsworthy not necessarily from a single source, but through some in the air mystique of ineffable and overlapping sources. In this internet age, buzz may be captured in the phrase going viral, measured by global statistics of trending. In short, buzz enacts the mechanisms or the possible mechanisms of soft power sway in the marketplace of goods, services, and ideas. And basically it worked. The exhibition occupying two floors as the largest in the museum's history broke all attendance records, increased membership with a new, younger, and more ethnically diversified demographic, spiked museum good sales. And by all accounts, it was a huge success for the museum and for Sanrio, reaping not only profits for both, but what might be termed soft power cultural capital. The museum gained a new image away from the serious history of Japanese-American internment camps of World War II and toward Asian-American contemporary playfulness centered in youth-oriented pop culture. Sanrio, too, gained a new image, legitimizing its place as a cultural force worthy of a museum exhibition. In short, as a purveyor of soft power. Furthermore, plans have been made for the Hello Kitty exhibition to travel outside Los Angeles for three to five years opening in November 2015, that's just next month, in Seattle at the Experience Music Project, a museum space originally dedicated to pop music. In short, the sanctification of Hello Kitty as a legitimate inhabitant of a museum with a dedicated following and a dedicated exhibition has been established in the United States and will continue with ongoing displays. So the tie-in between an American museum, and here you see some fans, and a Japanese pop culture corporation suggests collaborative forays into soft power niches of globalized public life. The exhibition coincided with another coup for Sanrio, Kitty Con, a four-day convention of Hello Kitty fans held at the Geffen Contemporary Art in downtown L.A.'s Little Tokyo, adjacent to the Japanese American National Museum. Sold out two weeks in advance, Kitty Con drew a frenzied crowd of over 2,600 fans, many of whom traveled thousands of miles to attend. Also in attendance were Sanrio executives from Japan, including Hello Kitty's designer Yuko Yamaguchi, known by fans as Kitty Mama. And here she is. And so that's me, and my son, and Kitty Mama between us. The juxtaposition of the museum exhibition and Kitty Con framed within established institutions of high status culture, that is Japanese-American and contemporary art worlds, speaks loudly for the place of Hello Kitty in global worlds, at least from the vantage point of North America. And here is somebody. What you got, if you were able to get into Kitty Con, was you could get a free tattoo. These tattoos were signed up for and sold immediately. They were by five well-known tattoo artists in the United States. And the only way you could get one was by lining up at 3.45 in the morning for a 10 a.m. opening. And so here, that's why she's especially pleased to be getting inked. With her permanent memento of the Kitty Con. And the Japanese government has followed Hello Kitty and other global pop Japanese figures in close pursuit, incorporating them into the fold of its cool Japan project of the 2000s. Through its popular culture partnerships, not only with Hello Kitty, but also with girl duo Puffy Amiyumi, cartoon character Doraemon, named in 2008 as Japan's anime ambassador. And its three kawaii taishi, or cute ambassadors, representing iconic, quote, girl figures of Japanese Rorita, schoolgirl, and Harajuku teen. Japan takes on the gloss of a putatively hip, youth-oriented trend-setting figure. The government unabashedly assumes close ties between politics, industry, and nationhood. With, for example, Hello Kitty being named Japan's ambassador of tourism to Taiwan and Korea in 2008. But what are we to make of such large-scale image making, such buzz on a national and international scale, captured within representations originally linked to young children and specifically girls? How do we position the nation Japan represented in a most benign figure of the perpetual third-grader quasi-cat living outside of London that Hello Kitty is supposed to be? And most perniciously, how do we interpret Sanrio's tiny, mouthless figure navigating waters, not only ply to encompass the Euro-American worlds that I've been talking about, but also throughout Asia, laden with deeply troubling colonial histories and political debates? These questions afford us the possibility of exploring what I call kawaii diplomacy. That is, nation branding built upon cute positioning and image making. In such diplomacy, Hello Kitty represents a highly successful, commercially-based soft power niche for Japan, whose buzz suggests not top-down promotion so much as bottom-up co-optation. Hello Kitty and other pop culture cool Japan symbols demonstrate the Japanese government's attempts to create its own buzz by soft power contagion, reconfiguring these icons' global success as national achievements. The creation of brand Japan borrows directly from marketing principles to capitalize on the world of buzz. Moreover, this soft power niche of diplomacy builds quite specifically upon an arsenal of innocence based in childhood, here extending to adult realms. Invoking innocence forms a large part of the appeal of Hello Kitty, take her smallness, her symbolic muteness, her blindness, her very gendered and never youthful position as a girl who never grows old. Furthermore, Hello Kitty represents not only the character's own perpetual youth, but calls up the youth of her viewers and fans. For many adult fans in Japan and elsewhere, Hello Kitty may be taken as a lieu de memoir, a tag of memory, and nostalgia for one's own childhood. She represents middle class shoujo, or young female, living in an idealized, unmarked, global suburban life in a small town on the outskirts of London. Given her birth in Japan in the 1970s, Hello Kitty represents an idyllic fantasy space, particularly for Japanese women, based in a British storybook world of anthropomorphized animals, rose-covered cottages, and close family and friends. This world of childhood innocence adheres visually in the character's spare design, gaining semantic flexibility through its abstraction. Innocence also adheres affectively in her ties to females and to childhood. Hello Kitty thus epitomizes the seductions of Kawaii, of cute, representing a highly stylized, performed innocence of nostalgia. As an adult consumer item, that nostalgized innocence may be a matter of individual style and taste. However, when placed on a national scale, that is, as part of brand Japan, such innocence suggests a range of strategies, including that which justifies retreat from responsibility, sorry, through its very banality. So here is Kawaii, and the innocence it circumscribes as the banal, the ordinary, the everyday by which we may fail to question critically. Here is also Kawaii, as feminized innocence whose very gendering and age renders it beyond reproach. Even more significance than the ambiguity surrounding power is the position of victimhood that the notion of innocence raises. Kawaii diplomacy teases us with the ultimate, Japan as victim rather than as perpetrator. Here's where discussion of soft power may be critical. The limitations of soft power must be seen not so much as the glass half empty, but the glass half full, enabling Japan to perhaps hide behind the ambiguous position that Kawaii details. What areas of international relations do soft power in the hands of Kawaii diplomacy obscure? The positioning of Hello Kitty as one face of Japan represents the power of the would-be child. At once appealing, seemingly benign, and ever in need of care and nurturance, Kawaii diplomacy builds upon affect and nostalgia rather than on critical thinking and in doing so throws a soft pink blanket upon the razor sharp edges of history. These contradictions may also be considered through the lens of scale. Hello Kitty's Kawaii diplomacy performs the gendered politics of scale, juxtaposing feminized, quote, small positions within large masculinist frames of nation branding. Critically, Sanrio positions Hello Kitty as always small, even when blown up to gargantuan proportions as at a New York City Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade inflatable, floating down the most famous shopping street in the United States, broadcast throughout the nation. Hello Kitty presents simultaneously small with large and large with small. This is monumental miniaturization that is global, gendered and commercial, embedded within the emotionalism of marketing. Sanrio's small gift big smile ethos frames Hello Kitty in a constant state of miniaturization that produces both the largest and the most intimate of effects. Indeed, Hello Kitty's leaps of scale provide testament to the global seductions by which size matters. Hello Kitty's smallness that is not literally a size but a production of the notion of smallness maybe even of innocence enables large scale effects. The degree to which we can agree with the nation that is purportedly built upon the shoulders of this and other, quote, small pop culture figures remains questionable. Ultimately, Kawaii diplomacy must be called into question, not only for its efficacy but also for its deeply broad implications of performed innocence and positioned victimhood. The critical question remains, why now? What does the Japanese government's investment in Kawaii diplomacy portend for foreign policy and positioning? What is the work of Kawaii diplomacy within the context of brand Japan? How, in other words, do we place Kawaii diplomacy within a larger framework of international relations and domestic policies? I agree that Kawaii diplomacy may be framed within current international controversies, Korean comfort women, territorial disputes, textbook revisionism, military bases in Okinawa, et cetera. It may also be framed within domestic issues, nuclear power, military force, status of women. In the midst of these, Kawaii diplomacy suggests a retreat into the performance of innocence, into an inviably banal position. By taking the spotlight of cute, Japan becomes not the aggressor but the aggressed upon, not the perpetrator but the victim. Kawaii diplomacy may even suggest Japan's utility in international yashi, or healing, as a feigned and illusory peacemaker. This is where the pop culture props upon which Kawaii diplomacy is built, served the government well, as Japan places itself on an international stage as shoujo, as the girl, through figures such as Hello Kitty, Puffy Yamiyumi, and Kawaii Taishi. One sees the strategy of flattening out the complexities of history, of quelling controversy. Kawaii diplomacy encourages two-dimensional thinking while discouraging complex multi-dimensionality. So why now? I argue that given an unstable economy, ongoing internal debates and external conflicts, the Japanese government has chosen to seize and capitalize upon the international popularity of its pop culture before the moment of Japan's gross national cool has passed. And if it succeeds, then perhaps the international cool spotlight upon Japan may rub off on Japanese citizens as well in the form of pride in its globally successful pop culture. Here lies the possibility of soft power directed both externally to other countries, as well as internally to Japanese themselves. This comes at a time when Japanese citizens often have little faith in their leader's ability to lead. It comes at a time when scholars abroad and at home shake their heads at a national commitment to manipulate knowledge production. Thus, the efficacy of Kawaii diplomacy in the hands of characters such as Hello Kitty in the wake of hugely successful global events, such as major museum exhibitions and Kitty Con in the United States, may lie not so much as international trade agreements or government policies or even an increased tourism from overseas, but in convincing Japanese themselves of the soft power worthiness of cute, cool Japan. Thank you. Thank you so much, Christine. So please join me in welcoming our second speaker. Perfect. Yeah, he's going. We've worked out the one, two, three. Yeah, your second. You are now anyway. Please join me in welcoming Professor Yasushi Watanabe from Keio University. Thank you, Simon. And it's nice to be here. I've been quite impressed by the high-level discussion of the Japan update here at the ADNU. And my presentation is not going to be cute, but please bear with me. My assignment today is to talk about Japan's public diplomacy or soft power diplomacy to win the hearts and minds of public or elite opinion in a foreign country. And when we talk about the public diplomacy, usually we divide it in two layers. The top layer is ultimate goal, achieving policy goals. In other words, setting agendas or making rules or building institutions like a TPP or territory issue or environmental issue or registering world heritage and so on. The bottom layer, securing optimal socio-cultural environments, which means securing sense of intimacy and trust and mutual understanding. And without this bottom layer, without securing this bottom layer, the achieving policy goal gets more difficult and costly no matter how much information you pass around or how loudly you speak out. And of course, intimacy does not automatically lead to securing the support for specific policies. So if you come to Japan on a Montbuchon fellowship and make lots of friends, that doesn't mean that you automatically support the specific Japanese policies. But if you understand Japan deeply, you are less likely to be influenced by sound bites or some sort of conspiracy theories. So this bottom layer is quite important. And my talk today focuses on this bottom layer. I'm not an expert on specific policy issues, but luckily we have distinguished experts on various important issues. So the global competition over the bottom layer is getting more intensified in the field of tourism, creative industries and higher education and language education and diversity issues and human rights and development and disaster relief and so on. So when soft power of Japan is discussed, we often focus on cool Japan phenomena like anime and game and manga and so on. But the soft power is much broader than pop culture. And the means of public diplomacy, I roughly classify into four categories. One is a policy advocacy, which means press release, press conference or official governmental publications. And international broadcasting, that means BBC World or NHK World or CCTV or Arirang or France 24 or Russia Today and so on. And these, the policy advocacy and international broadcasting usually deal with the first information, very quick to disseminate. And exchange diplomacy means policy dialogue or intellectual dialogue or various type of public symposium or fellowship programs. Cultural diplomacy here means language education, art exhibition and film and literature, music and sports and also various commemorative festivals. And these exchange diplomacy and cultural diplomacy deal with slow information, very slow to accumulate and therefore very difficult to evaluate, but nonetheless important. Okay, the quick review of history of Japanese public diplomacy. It was a year 2004 that the public diplomacy was officially adopted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But the such diplomatic approaches of course existed long before. For instance, in 1867, Tokugawa Shogunate and Navishima and the Satsuma Clans were invited by Napoleon III to Paris Expo. And six years later, Meiji government allocated as much as 1% its total annual budget just to participate in the Vienna Expo. But these efforts gradually shifted towards propaganda during the war times. And because of the bad experience of during war time, Japan needs public diplomacy became very inactive and also reserved in the post-war era. Japan faced a challenge of transforming its reputation as a militaristic aggressor into that of a democratic and a peace-loving nation. But then around the 1960s, when Japanese economies started to take off, we began to have a trade friction with the Southeast Asia and the United States. And sometimes we have to be more assertive to explain the Japan's position. And quite often, Japanese sort of uniqueness was emphasized to defend ourselves, institutions and behaviors. So this is a time when the soul of the Nihon Jindon discourse was pretty much prevailed and became very dominant in the public diplomacy. For instance, Professor Chie Nakanes, a very famous book, Tate Shakae no Nihon, The Vertical Society of Japan, was translated into various languages and passed around the world, especially the Southeast Asia and the United States. Then, since 1990, around the time of Gulf War, in which Japan was criticized for doing checkbook diplomacy, a more emphasis started to be given to making a contribution to international community as an advanced industrial country. And the emphasis was given on the common global agenda or shared experience. And recently, recent focuses on human security issues and infrastructure and services, by which I mean, for instance, the numerous Japanese products and services, for instance, the method for treating sewage water or school curriculum for physical education or correcting method in jail. And even the Kumon method, it's kind of individualized learning system, or TACCubing, I don't know how to translate it, it's a quick and very punctual delivery services. Attracting attention in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. And tourism, of course, and the creative industries, including pop culture. And pop culture is quite important because it serves as an important gateway to Japan, especially for the young generation. And also, it serves as a common currency, as a forming, what should I say, part of shared culture among Asian countries and beyond. And, of course, 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic is, we quite answered yesterday about it. And many actors of public diplomacy, in the left column, the state actor is, of course, the various actors in the ministries, but particularly the ministry for affairs. And this is not much well known, not reported, but for instance, ministry for affairs has been inviting the religious leaders and ethnic leaders and congressmen from Iraq to Japan, and visits are made to Kyoto and Nara and Hiroshima and share the Japan's experience with a possible reconstruction and also what democracy means or democratization. And the Japan Foundation is not a state actor. Japan Foundation is a public actor keeping arms ranks from the government. But it's a kind of Japanese counterpart of the British Council or the Gath Institute of Germany. And they are doing lots of things, including hosting this event. But for instance, after someone mentioned about the great East Japan earthquake in 2011, but the Japan Foundation launched the so-called Kizuna Project, in which hundreds of young people from more than 40 or 50 countries were invited to Japan and sharing the Japan's experience of disaster, suffering disaster and reconstruction of the community and also disaster prevention. And of course, the public diplomacy is increasingly diversified, now involving lots of non-state or more private actors such as think tanks and universities and NGOs and religious organizations and so on. And a role of celebrities plays on the Twitter and social media is negligibly important. And this is something I've been discussed in the morning sessions, but there are various challenges facing Japan's soft power. For instance, women's social advancement, LGBT issues and hate speech and cyberbullying. I don't think this is particularly or uniquely Japanese phenomenon, but Japan is certainly not immune to it. And immigration and refugee issues and English language proficiency and higher education. Now, maybe I can say this, but 10 years ago our university offered a teaching position to a very promising young American scholar of Japanese history, but our offer was turned down and that American scholar went to first to Singapore. And now I found him here at ANU, I'm moderating this session. So this is really kind of a shame to Japanese university, like especially to Keiwa University. So higher education poses a challenge and even more challenges, rumor control in the aftermath of the Great East earthquake in 2011, of course, historical issues and the traditional fishing method and aging population and the low birth rate and accountability and evaluation is also difficult to justify why we are doing cultural diplomacy or public diplomacy, especially to us politicians who wants to cut the budget as much as possible. And the first victim tends to be those cultural and public affairs. Yeah, so certainly global competitions over soft power and public diplomacy are getting very intensified. Not only Japan, but also China and the South Korea putting lots of efforts and also Turkey and Brazil in the India and UAE and so on. But the mayor competition could end up being just another power game using culture as a kind of soft weapon. So, well, what we shouldn't forget is that the soft power is not necessarily zero sum game. It could be, as Josephine I says, it could be a positive sum that we win a game. So although I think competition is inevitable in realistic international relations, sometimes it's even important and necessary. I think, however, collaborative or cooperative efforts or approaches always must be sought for, otherwise we end up just another power game. And examples are many. For instance, I can name the Nikkan Koryuomatsuri. It's a Japan-South Korea exchange festival jointly held by South Korea and Japan in both in Seoul and Tokyo. And this was just two weeks ago, they marked the 10th anniversary. And in case of South Korea, I mean Seoul, more than 60,000 people show up and 700 Korean students volunteered. And 150 companies from both countries supported the event. So it was the most vibrant event in the past 10 years. This initiative is particularly important when the official relation, I mean between government to government relation is unstable so that the important bilateral relation is not hijacked by a particular single issue. Still, things get heat up and sometimes un-present. The pressure mounts at home for tough posture. You have to pretend to be tough on neighboring countries. But cool heads must always prevail to rise above emotions. And finally, the telling your story requires understanding and listening to other stories. So we talk about how to tell Japan's story, but that requires deceptive power. So deceptive power always have to be the foundation of soft power. Thank you very much. Thank you Koichi and thank you Yasushi. Thanks also for digging up my past as well. Our next speaker is Professor Koichi Iwabuchi from Monash University. Please join me in welcoming him. Thank you. Yeah, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me to this fascinating event. I'm also very much impressed with my very active discussion going on, particularly in the morning, and hope we'll have another very good discussion for this session. I'm also very impressed that so many people putting tie. And I never attended this kind of conference before. But I'm a more cultural study, so feel more informal, laugh kind of, yeah, academics. Anyway, and so, yeah, so after two great speeches on soft power and public diplomacy. So my talk a little bit overlap with two speeches before me, but okay, yeah, this is a title, but so maybe I don't have to repeat much, so. But yes, maybe younger people might be surprised to know the first quote, Japan has money, but no cultural influence in the world. This kind of sentence was quite well received internationally even 20 years ago. So even early 1990s, some media cultural studies scholar clearly states Japan has no cultural influence. But of course, it's quite different now. So that's why we are having a discussion. And already Chris on the Kawaii Hello Kitty influence and also Watanabe Yatsushita on the more public diplomacy. But my talk is a little bit more focusing on popular culture as Watanabe-san said, culture diplomacy or public diplomacy, not limited to the popular culture. Just one aspect of such kind of diplomacy or soft power. But my talk is more focusing on this kind of issues. So this maybe I don't have to say much about this state of cultural cool Japan policy now. So at the moment is Meti, K-san show is taking the leadership because this creative industry issues are more important for cool Japan now. But I'm more interested in today's more popular diplomacy and also soft power issues. Maybe starting with, as I saw, maybe you remember. Everything started with maybe oceans is popularity in the late 80s. So first of all, my position is I have been researching on particularly trans-Asian media culture flows and how particular kind of media culture crossing the boundaries from Japan or from Korea, from Taiwan, what co-production is being advanced and how people receive what kind of images they create by consuming a particular media text coming from other parts of Asia. And so this is one key research topic for me. And yes, so from my experiences, of course, I take such kind of East Asian media culture flows quite seriously because it tells us the complicated process of cultural globalization. So many issues, the westernization, global, local, nexus or the regionalization, in this case, East Asian media culture flows connection. And also particularly regionalization issues deepening mutual understanding. So this is not just straight forward kind of I understand Japan, I understand Korea, I like Korea, Japan, such kind of a superficial levels. But maybe this makes sense to most of you. Usually I show this sentence in my undergraduate class at the beginning of the course. This is kind of a little bit over exaggerated manner of saying there are many, many culture in Japan, of course. But whenever we talk about Japanese, or Korean, or Australian culture, so we are implicitly or explicitly be selective of a particular culture. So cultural authorization, selection, it's always matter. So this is a kind of very important reminder whenever we talk about the Japanese culture or any culture with some national objective. So deepening, so rise of East Asian media culture flows, connections has I think encourage the deepening of mutual understanding in the sense to problematizing this kind of a sentence. So Japanese culture, so what is Japanese culture? So because consuming many culture coming from Japan, or Korea, or China, or whatever. So people, a younger generation, people expand their understanding of a particular society, not just culture issue. And so because they consume many, many kind of cultures coming from Japan, not just animation and manga. And also even only animation, there are many kind of animation. Some animation deals with a shoujo culture, like hello kitty, like very kawaii cuteness, or sometimes a racial issue or historical issue, et cetera. So popular culture flow expanded the understanding of a particular nation and society. And also if we do, actually I have done a lot of interviews in East Asian countries. So inter-Asian referencing and also cross-border dialogue is going on, so it's not good. Because popular cultural flows, consumption, operate in the sense of giving people a kind of a good opportunity to appreciate other Asian modernities or global experiences as a mirror for self-reflexively thinking of one's society, culture, and historically constitutive relationship. And so that's why I think we need to take popular culture flows, particularly in East Asian context, quite seriously. And so that's why I think culture diplomacy, soft power is important to discuss together. But I think for this purpose, we need to go beyond the very narrow, limited concerns of improving Japan's images. So we need to go beyond this. So I'll return to this point later. And so, so globalized practice, soft power. So as Watanabe-san said, soft power originally means it's much wider than popular cultural, attractiveness of popular culture. But globalization of, globalized practice of soft power reduce the original argument of soft power to the more attractiveness of popular culture, media culture, some particular national culture to be projected to other part of the world, to enhance nation images or brand images, if you like. And so the problem is it's tend to be one way image projection. This is quite problematic still. And also it is a kind of instrumental use of culture to enhance a narrow, focused national interest. And so it is what Raymond Williams famously said, it's a cultural policy of display. So displaying national pride, national images, et cetera. And so what is neglected is a cultural complexity in the world, particularly in the digital world we are living in. So dynamic practice of a cultural consumption of translation, who knows what kind of images Hello Kitty might disseminate about Japan. I think it is much more interesting to think about the impact of Hello Kitty not by not thinking about enhancing enhancement of images of Japan. Because Hello Kitty, as Chris said, has a lot more to do with the gender, politics, sexuality, et cetera, rather than national images, actually. And also market driven unevenness. And the third one is a historical issue. This is something Watanabe-san already mentioned and the reception of pop culture. So consuming popular culture might enhance some people's images of Japan or Korea. But this does not resolve the historical issue of course, this is quite different. So this kind of complexity sometimes tend to be disregarded. And also last but not least, internationalism with hyphen to emphasize the re-nationalization process. And it's tend to promote the disregard of cultural diversity within border. So nation-to-nation relationship too much emphasize. And then, and also cultural diversity existing within the nation tend to be ignored. So I'm very briefly explaining these kind of issues. Well, maybe we can say differently, these three kind of stages of popular cultural flows. Trans-cultural is a very interesting part of a meaning construction, cultural localization, appropriation. It also enhances the mutuality and the dialogue. Sometimes conflict and misunderstanding as well. But this kind of dynamic picture was marketized of course by industries. This is a transnational phrase. And the setting of road flows or seemingly odorless culture is marketized in other part of the world, market. The third one is more policy levels maybe. But as I said, this kind of cultural complexity tend to be reduced to how to enhance the images of the nation. Here comes back the container model of the nation state or methodological nationalism if you like. So let me just briefly explain because time is limited, so another seven minutes or something. So this is a very famous example of inter-Asian cultural hybridization of a Japanese cartoon, comic book, Hanayori Dango remade in Taiwan, Ryu Shifuayan as a TV drama and which became so popular in many, many parts of the world, Asia. And then relatively Japanese TV station also made the similar kind of a drama, Hanayori Dango. Then Korean version appeared and then finally Chinese version as well. So many postgraduate students have done this kind of research by comparing for example representation of gender, gender role or sexuality. So it tells us a lot, very interesting comparison of inter-Asian referencing or inter-Asian appropriation or particular story, so in a very different kind of text. And also this is a little bit old figure. Now maybe you remember Winter Sonata about 10 years ago, it's so popular in Japan. And it changed the image of Korea. Yes, so it's soft power, maybe, cultural diplomacy works, but it's more complicated. The second one is the historical issue. About 40% of people said, yes, they have become more conscious about what's happened between Japan and Korean peninsula in the past. And even more interesting was about a quarter of people said they are getting more interested in residents of Korea who are the ethnic racial minority living in Japan. So after reading, watching this kind of drama. So watching, conceiving popular culture is not just enhancing the images of a particular nation. It has a much more contradictory, much more deeper kind of impact. This kind of things we need to look more closely. But any discussion about cultural diplomacy, soft power, this kind of complexity. These kinds of ethnographic studies have been done. Only media culture studies, anthropology, sociology, communication, study people are more concerned with this kind of issue. And so this is all ambassador from Taiwan, Japan, or Korea. And also, yeah, this is shown by Chris. And also recently, Asian countries has become a key region for soft power competition among Japan, China, and South Korea. So these three countries now competing each other to gain the better recognition in South Asian countries. So this is, and also Japanese government currently put huge money into Asian countries at the moment. So it's also reflected as we know very well the antagonism among these three nations. And also another antagonism is this is what I call copyright orientalism. This is all Chinese cheap copy according to Japanese mass media. So this original copy looks better, but it doesn't matter. So Japanese mass media just condemn China, again, they are making a cheap copy and the violation of a copyright law. So that's why it is not just mocking of a Chinese copy, but it's a more orientalistic kind of discourse because Japanese mass media tend to regard this kind of copying as a violation of a copyright law, which shows China's backwardness, very orientalist argument. So next issue is history. These are a little bit old kind of a picture about 10 years ago. So governmental white paper says expect some kind of impact over Japanese popular culture animation in particular, manga animation in China and Korea at the time of anti-Japanese sentiment rose up about 10 years ago. But actually, including me, many people listen to the voices in Korea and China who loved to consume Japanese popular culture. Of course, they love Japan, they love Japanese people, culture, but the history is different. So we need to engage differently. Of course, this is a complexity again. But more recently, antagonism between Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China in particular over the territorial issues, historical issues. So this is a Japanese public opinion survey which shows a huge rise of a huge... Actually, this is a question of the sense of intimacy people feel to Korea and China and not feeling that kind of intimacy rose up around the year 2011 and 2012. This nearly coincided with 3.11 and also Tokuto issue become a more historical, political issue and also the current Abenaika started in December 2012. And many hate books against China, against Korea become quite popular. More recently, this kind of antagonism became much stronger, many demonstrations in China, Korea and also Japan. This is anti-Korean wave demonstration and that one is anti- I think China demonstration. And maybe you know more recently very controversial issue of Nanjin massacre was registered as a memory of the world recently and the Japanese government now complain against this decision. And also comfort women issues also, yes, I'm keeping. Okay, so this is... So that's why Murakami Haruki won't, maybe you remember about 3 years ago. People are getting drunk by drinking cheap alcohol of nationalism so we need to do something as a cultural critique. And so this is something Watanabe-san also mentioned the hate speech. Actually again, movement against Korea or China is on the rise but it's for some reason led to the hate speech against resident Koreans in Japan. So this is still ongoing. It's a very serious issue at the moment in Japan. That is a number of racist demonstrations which happened in 2013. And the last issue I want to mention is as I said global international diversity. This is a quote from another white paper by the Committee for the Promotion of Culture. I think these are very good, great sentences. But the question is whether this kind of cultural diversity is on what level are we talking about. It is again, nation to nation, unfortunately. Recent discussion about nation branding, there are many critical studies of nation branding now. They nearly agree nation branding or maybe soft power too seem to be more concerned with external projections of the nation's images. But it has more to do with the internal governance of people's mobilization or re-nationalization reclaiming the nation's cultural essence, etc. So what's happened is how such kind of promotion of a cool Japanese food on the one hand and also non-promotion, non-engagement with a cultural diversity already existing with Japan. So apart from whether Japan should take in immigrant or not, there are many, many people who migrated to Japan recently, not in the Asian time of another. And so how, but no police engagement have been made. So this is, so which Japan, which Japan are we talking about, are we promoting? So this is a very serious issue. This left side is a more cool Japan kind of promotion. And also recently mixed race this is a do you know this one? Documented half which produced last year. So yeah, of course, Tagya Crystal was a model mixed race people in Japan, a celebrity. But these people are not much well regarded within Japan. And so let me conclude pointing out how we go further. So I think about the media popular culture issue I think we should because as I said already dialogue is starting, has been starting by consuming popular culture. But we need advance such kind of dialogue potential further. And so this kind of dialogue should be concerned with the historical issue as well. And also globally shared problem and his attending marginal voices concern. And also I think it's quite time for us to work together to make a pedagogical design for the progressive use of a popular culture. And also use of digital media not just in the classroom but also involving many citizens in society. For example some people said, you know, cute ambassador is superficial. It's nothing. But I think if we more properly, more seriously introduce this kind of culture to other part of the world, I think it's a great opportunity for to enhance dialogue among people. Because this kind of cute culture has much to do with again sexuality and also regional culture and the gender issue and the subculture issues which many countries society shared. So it is not just it's a matter of how we introduce how we use this kind of media culture images of popular culture to enhance such kind of dialogue. And also actually last year we showed this half film in the University of Japan with the Japan Foundation actually. And 400 people came out and we had a very good discussion about the mixed race people not just in Japan and in Australia as well. So you know this has I think much more important, this shows much more important practice to enhance cultural dialogue. It is a great, I think for me it was a great opportunity to see the possibility of cultural diplomacy or public diplomacy by using some particular field. And so this is something akin to what Henry Jenkins said so popular introduction of popular culture can be a point of entry only a point of entry into a larger consideration of culture of the political economy. So we need to do something when we introduce some particular culture not just one way projection makes sense anymore. And so this is another two issues. So cultural diplomacy recent discussion of cultural diplomacy particularly in the UK British Council, tend to emphasize I'm finishing emphasizing the promotion of greater mutuality and engaging with the domestic public. Of course, greater mutuality already happening not just a media issue culture but also as we discussed last night jet program of the Colombo plan but again, it's not just as Watanabe-san said not enough to just exchange these people. We need to have some kind of design to let people have a more critical, develop critical discussion among them in the long future. And also more recent discussion of cultural diplomacy emphasize engaging with the domestic public not just projection of the image to the external world but they need also engage with the public in the society. So this is not just let them learn about other culture. This is important but at the same time they need to learn about ourselves and also self-other relationship as well. Again this will require some kind of pedagogical design and so this will leads to the collaboratively deepen the understanding of Japan and also in the quotation mark. And so soft power I think we need to go beyond soft power as a one-way project, image projection. So I think maybe it should be something to do with the more domestic cultivation and international fostering of democratic value cost point of practice. Very historian John Dower says Japan's most important soft power is an article 9 of constitution. That's one way of seeing the soft power maybe. Because as he said it's not just imposed from US but it is something Japanese people has fostered after in the last 70 years so I think this kind of more dynamic view of a soft power is very important. This is overlapping with already what was already shown. So yes, NHK world might be working to enhance Japan's images, perfect diplomacy. But at the same time we are watching you know, reading the social media every day. And so global tweeting about uncool Japan is going as well. So many issues it's a challenge. But I think it's not just a challenge. It's a challenge to be publicized. It's a challenge we need to tackle with in Japan. And also from Australia, from other parts of East Asia we can join this kind of discussion. Because similar issue might be shared in other countries. Particularly press freedom. Now Japan has 61 out of 100 countries after 311 actually. And also gender gap index many people discuss gender equality in Japan this morning. So it is 103 out of 142 according to World Economic Forum. So Japan needs of course tackle with this kind of issue more seriously. And those hate speech. And these are all kind of more grass roots movement to deal with, tackle with this kind of issue. So I think something is interesting has already happening. And also more grass roots levels or trans-local levels of a collaboration would be important if government-governmental relations might be quite difficult to deal with, particularly in East Asian country at the moment. So to conclude I think we need to rethink the national interest beyond the narrowly focused goals. In the recent article to which I also contribute to. So we can define national interest as a generative mechanism for overcoming narrow or exclusionary notion of the nation in favour of more relational and open understanding. Which means I think self-reflexibly or maybe self-critically transcending the national interest in the narrowly focused one is in the national interest in the long term. Whether we can accept this kind of definition of national interest would be the first step we should take. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you very much. So we have questions. We were having dinner last night and a discussion of public diplomacy came up yesterday. And we're talking about possible connections between possible public diplomacy initiatives between Canberra and Japan. And we're a sister city of Nara here. So the topic of animal diplomacy came up yesterday. And the idea of exchanging idea for a kangaroo came up over dinner as one possible initiative for the future, maybe something for to think about. So we have a question of the atomical. Thank you very much for that very interesting presentation. Because I did the history of the Japanese public diplomacy before the 1945 I wonder that in your presentation there is a bit of confusion between the sort of the public diplomacy which is directed by the government and the sort of Japanese pop culture circulation which were actually beyond the government sort of objectives. And I think there seem to be maybe not the confusion but sort of the conceptual you know there are quite different things and I was a little bit confused. So when I did that sort of the historical study comparative study of the Japan, United States UK and also Germany that they start the public diplomacy quite early on and there seem to be the golden rule is that the less government presence is up front it's more effective. And so my question is that how much do you think that the government involvement had created the positive or negative sort of impact and what would you actually think what government should be doing. Maybe they just to give the money and then just to let them sit and then rather than have the national objective or whatever just to let the pop culture circulate among themselves or you know let the people do it that maybe actually more effective rather than government getting involved and then have the national because then that's inter-national as you say. Is it directed to anybody? Everybody? Thank you very much. As I said I think policy is important because it's as much and also you know to what extent government involved is another matter of discussion. But my point is at the moment pop culture at least in the current Japanese context doesn't take popular culture seriously. And also more I think as I said many leading this kind of policy at the moment so more economic part. But if we think about the more kind of cultural diplomacy or grass roots people exchange, understanding dialogue. Because this is very important now and also for this part not just government many levels of course should be involved but for I don't deny the involvement of Japanese government or culture policy to advance this kind of discussion because it is still I think important part because as I it's quite difficult to if we let industry do something but no. It's still very market driven kind of inequality and disparity still there. I think about the two but advance the more progressive kind of cultural policy such as diplomacy or public diplomacy. First we need take what's going on seriously. What kind of cultural understanding, what kind of cultural dialogue has been developed and not developed and then we can think about what kind of intervention we should make. So it should be of course the go beyond one way projection of active images of the nation. It's nothing. So I think my point is yes so I agree that culture policy is important any governmental level of involvement with this multiple people to people exchange is very important but as a center we need to take this more seriously. We are going beyond the narrow one way projection of culture and we need some more pedagogical design what I said to advance this kind of a policy in a more effective and more progressive manner. Can I just add something and it was interesting for me doing the research on San Diego, Hello Kitty in San Diego because I'd say it was possibly in the mid-2000s and this was well after the cool Japan project I wanted to be done. I went to this real people in the United States and I said so what do you think of this cool Japan and they had not heard of it. So I think it just puts a little rejoinder a reminder to us as to who knows what and for what kinds of purposes and as much as we might talk about cool Japan or Japanese culture policy that people on the ground in industry may know about it. In this age of globalization it's getting more and more difficult for government or state to control the image and the information. So what we in the field of public diplomacy is talking about is a new public diplomacy in which the government or state serves not to dominate the information or information but serving as a facilitator for connecting the private sectors or laying out the conditions so that private sector can thrive well. So having said that there are still many things that only government can possibly do for instance promoting the national tourism and also negotiating over the piracy or copyright issues and also negotiating to register cultural heritage and those kind of things probably only government can do and also what is quite important for Japan is to enhance the mutual understanding with the Muslim countries but it's very difficult to privatize the exchange programs because it doesn't have any profit. So for that kind of activities only public funding or governmental help is needed is necessary. So I don't mean to say that the government is getting useless not. Thank you, my name is Jane Ferguson and I'm with College of Asian and Pacific Anthropology. I really enjoyed this panel and actually coming at this from outside of Japan studies I was wondering just from three presentations I was interested if you had any reflections or opinions about sinister aspects of soft power and cultural diplomacy when we're talking about power there's some people that are powerful and others that aren't and if these icons are smoothing over diplomacy I mean who's losing from this I guess is one question I had about it but then also the issue of soft power a marketing perspective that once there's so much brand recognition then the icon loses its power thinking of you know if you want to photocopy something we say Xerox you have to be a Xerox machine so does this work for these icons that we've been talking about and then also the iconic points I was interested I mean I haven't read your book on Hello Kitty but I was wondering if there's any connection between Hello Kitty as an icon and then the Roswell aliens that would take over and abduct people and you know that sort of thing I mean maybe that's an organic icon but in some ways I see a lot of connection there was a paper I went to at Moko Shimisu I talked about Hello Kitty as a hybrid monster so you know I'm just curious if there's an evil side to all this cuteness I think I've alluded to what I consider some of the potential evils in terms of as I said sort of kind of putting a soft pink blanket over really you know certain kinds of crimes and histories and controversies in Japan and I think Koichi too alludes to that possibility but you know Jane I think we still have to have a private conversation about the conspiracy theories around Hello Kitty we'll leave Thank you very much for free fabulous papers I want to ask a question which I mean it's not exactly what anybody in the panel was addressing so I'm not quite sure who it's to slightly following up on Moko's question I know the current Japanese government is talking a lot about how much money into promoting Japan's image overseas particularly in the context of their use and so on and I've seen lots of figures flung around about how much money is going to go into that and I wondered whether anybody had comments on how that is going to affect the nature of cultural diplomacy and I wanted to ask this partly because I've just recently heard of this situation where a number of prominent politicians in the ruling party are sending out to academics politicians and media people all over the world two books one produced by the Sankei Shimbun called History Wars and another one produced by a woman called Orsonpa called Getting Over It Why Korea Should Stop Bashing Japan both of which are extremely factually inaccurate and extremely insulting to lots of people so I'm just wondering whether or how this fits into the story is this one side of the coin of which the other is Hello Kitty or is it a shift away from a sort of cool Japan to distributing a much more masculine uncool Japan and why aren't they giving out Hello Kitty memorabilia instead of these books because it would be so much more effective Should I ask my question as well so you can answer them both together so I'm Carol Hayes from the School of Culture History and Languages here at ANU with Tessa as well but I also wanted to ask I suppose in this similar space that you've been talking about but talking about government sponsorship of cultural diplomacy if you like and there seems to be an inherently monolingual contradiction underwriting a lot of NHK global or as a researcher and teacher of Japanese literature and cultural studies so the horse had bolted for a lot of the popular culture that the fan sites were already translating into English they'd already sort of gone viral before the Japanese government decided to follow along and use this called diplomacy or soft diplomacy but why does NHK not translate why does Japan not translate sell more of their DVDs for example with subtitles in English, Japanese, Korean so as soon as a DVD is produced in Japan coming from any Japanese major film any major TV broadcast why is that not immediately sold as subtitled versions throughout the world there seems to be so much monolingualism underwriting this actually I am serving I am chairing the advisory panel on the NHK world so that topic question often comes up and there's a discussion that like many other channels of Korea China we should diversify the language more and not just English but there are lots of technical issues but now there's a request from the politician to make it available in other languages like Persians and French and so on so I think we are heading to that direction regarding why not many contents broadcasted with subtitles is one thing I found quite interesting is that it's very difficult to get the copyright cleared for instance there are lots of interesting dramas and films but in case of Japan you have to clear the copyright issue with each actor or actress which takes enormous amount of time whereas South Korea the production company has all the rights so it's very quick so that's a fact thank you Tessa for the information I didn't know that but Chris said she also received the two books yes so I don't know they are doing both of course and also who is doing this I'm not sure maybe LDP people are doing that I don't know maybe not part of MOFA or Public Diplomacy Policy but it is many agents are now playing a card of Public Diplomacy for different purposes so it can be part of a bigger picture of course Public Diplomacy so I think it is quite important particularly at the moment as I said Nankin Masaka memory of the world registration controversy has just started and also come to women issues and there's no good discussion among sorry this is this asked me to stop so sorry anyway so thank you for your information it's a sensitive I think whether it's diplomacy or sport the one who overreacts is the loser so I think it's very important not to overreact to the provocative actions of other countries or institutions or parties I have a question at the back there Hi I'm very interested in the concept of cultural diplomacy I got general two questions so in the first what should we understand in the real of a certain government's plate in the shaping or construction of cultural diplomacy and second I got example so what's the relations between a government's dominance or market oriented relations between the cultural diplomacy for example China so in my first understanding it's primarily government's dominance so it's pop culture mainly target for its domestic citizen but like those careers neighbor it's maybe market oriented and also government's promoted so in pan-Asian communities that is understanding would be more popular in the Chinese one so what's the relationships between the government and markets in shaping cultural diplomacy thanks well in case of China you are absolutely right the government takes they do censorship and also they are very actively involved in case of Korea you will write but you shouldn't probably forget that South Korea has created the so called Korea contents agency some some eight years ago in which the government provides various support to selling in order to sell the Korean contents overseas sometimes they support the artists directly sometimes they have an event inviting the local companies to sell the Korean products so in case of Japan I think the way Japanese government is involved is more subtle indirect and I think that's good because especially in the field of pop culture youth culture the governmental interference is considered to be very negatively or even offensive to the fan of pop culture I found the discussion really interesting and as an economist I couldn't help but think about kind of the economic dimension of this and so in the economics literature what you find is that if you can shift people to like your country more right so in the surveys that they do international surveys of what you feel about a country every 1% increase in the popularity of your country gets you about a 0.8% increase in exports so kind of as a crude view of what's going on this is about advertising and I wonder to what extent is this about just liking Japan and to what extent is this about just to get people to buy Japanese stuff and the second related question about this is when you look at Japan's soft power if you measure it in terms of perceptions about countries internationally you find Japan's almost at the very top the very very top is Germany and Japan's almost number two and I guess a question is why is it that these countries do so well internationally in terms of public perception other countries it's not just the Axis because England is up there but much better than the United States or other countries and BBC surveys of soft power so I guess two questions one is this all about marketing and two why is Japan so successful say more successful in the United States can this type of stuff say something about when I was thinking through this topic I was initially thinking that this is the same thing as buzz and I equated the two but then I realized that actually for a marketing axiom the buzz whether it's positive or negative supposedly impacts a product positively so buzz is buzz whether it's positive or negative and in other words if talk about a product is in the air it tends to generate sales even if some of that talk might be negative because negative talk could then be I guess shaped in different ways but it can result in sales no matter what and that's where I saw a departure from cultural diplomacy because it may be very difficult for a nation to overcome negative buzz the way that a marketing product would so anyway for me it was talking about the limits of buzz as a basic marketing sometimes you are right that how many products are sold and how many people visited your website those numbers are important but what is interesting about or important about public diplomacy sometimes it's important to affect as many people as possible but sometimes it's important to affect just a very few key persons so you cannot reduce the outcome only to numbers and the question is why Japan does so well ah I don't know but I think it's a BBC world survey I think you are mentioning the latest one is Japan 6 or 7 not second I don't fly I don't fly Germany gets so well I don't know I'm not sure accepting more refugees but at least as far as the two countries China and South Korea they are very much disliked Japan so the images of Japan in China and South Korea are very very bad according to this survey so I think it's better to have a dialogue between these three countries rather than just reading the result while we are number 5 or 6 and maybe you look very well while you are sitting either afternoon ok so unfortunately we are out of time please join me in thanking our panelists for a wonderful panel