Last October Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe made a series of city diplomacy-related overseas visits to city leaders in London and Berlin. This was followed by Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s ‘Basic Strategy for City Diplomacy’ (PDF), compiled in December 2014.
The strategy (PDF) clarifies the key principles for Tokyo’s city diplomacy as:
- TMG shall strategically implement city diplomacy as an effective means to realise policies that will contribute to Tokyo’s advancement
- City diplomacy will be a TMG-wide endeavour undertaken comprehensively and it must aim at improving the lives of residents of Tokyo and ensuring that benefits gained will be returned to them
- TMG’s city diplomacy shall be conducted in cooperation and collaboration with central government, and it shall aim at contributing to the international community
It states that “The specific contents of exchange and cooperation will be practical, focusing on topics that concern both parties and substantive matters that will contribute to Tokyo’s successful delivery of the 2020 Games and the realization of Tokyo as the best city in the world. The form of partnership and cooperation will not be limited to sister and friendship city relations, but will be a flexible one that can take on forms such as partnership agreements and the holding of single events or conferences.”
Governor Masuzoe adds: “In Japan, there is much debate over the pros and cons of overconcentration of resources in Tokyo. However, we must break away from the mind-set of fighting for a larger share of the limited pie within Japan; each city must pursue its own suitable growth model and work hard to raise its power and attractiveness by competing with each other.”
The article ‘Tokyo: Can a city have its own foreign policy?’ by Akio Miyajima, Special Advisor to Governor Masuzoe (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), in February’s The World Today magazine of Chatham House can be read here.
