고려대학교

초록/요약

This paper investigates how Japan’s cultural diplomacy responded to the concepts of international organizations, social movements, political ideologies, economic means, and cultural values during the period of international environmental change at the end of the Cold War in the 1980s and early 1990s. The conclusions are as follows. First, when the concept of cultural heritage was developed and applied globally in the first half of the 1980s, Japan demonstrated a passive response. Ratification of the World Heritage Convention was delayed due to the escalating conflict over UNESCO’s operation, influenced by the Cold War. Rather than actively expanding the scope of cultural diplomacy to include cultural heritage, Japan chose a passive approach to World Heritage Convention ratification as a “member of the Western Camp.” Second, when the Cold War ended with the reform and opening of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan emphasized “international contribution” and actively engaged in cultural diplomacy. Prime Minister Takeshita’s “International Exchange Initiative” served as a good starting point. This shift in Japanese cultural diplomacy coincided with the shift in Southeast Asian geopolitics that began at the end of the Cold War, and Japan began to use the concept of cultural heritage in this region actively.