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(left) Sir Thomas Smythe, the Governor of the East India Company, which reached Japan in 1613
(centre) Map showing the English trading house in Hirado (1613-1623)
(right) Japanese painting of King James on a namban screen
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"Though separated by ten thousand leagues of clouds and waves, our territories are as it were close to each other" (Letter from Tokugawa Ieyasu to King James, October 1613)
This conference reviews the first period of partnership between Britain and Japan, 400 years to the month since the British 'temporarily' closed the East India Company's presence in Japan. The conference covers the little-known arrival of the first Japanese in Britain and in 1600 the arrival of the first Englishman in Japan, William Adams from Gillingham in Kent, known as Miura Anjin. Thirteen years later King James's Official Mission to Japan formally opened diplomatic, trade, scientific and cultural relations with the gift of one of Europe's most advanced scientific instruments, a telescope.
This colourful period of history will be examined in the first half of the Conference, while its lessons for current and future relations between Britain and Japan will be the substance of the second half. That part of the Conference will consider the Japan-British partnership today, both at national and local level and under a variety of headings.
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| Time |
Speaker |
Topic |
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FIRST HALF |
15.00-15.05 |
HE Mr Hajime Hayashi, Japanese Ambassador |
Opening Remarks |
| 15.05-15.20 |
Sir Tim Hitchens, KCVO CMG, former British Ambassador to Japan and now President of Wolfson College, Oxford |
The Japan 400 commemoration as seen from Tokyo |
| 15.20-15.40 |
Professor Timon Screech, Joint Chairman, Japan400 |
Overview of the Period |
| 15.40-15.55 |
Associate Professor Thomas Lockley |
First contact: Gentlemen of Japan 1587-1592 |
| 15.55-16.10 |
Professor Richard Irving |
William Adams, Man and Myth |
| 16.10-16.30 |
Dr Margaret Makepeace, East Asian Specialist, British Library |
Key Documents from the Period |
| 16.30-16.40 |
Professor Nandini Das, Oxford University, and author of 'Courting India' |
The Anglo-Japanese initiative set into a global context |
| 16.40-17.05 |
DISCUSSION, including Dr Hiromi Rogers, author of 'Anjin-The Life and Times of Samurai William Adams, 1564-1620 as seen through Japanese Eyes' |
| 17.05-17.30 |
Tea/Coffee Break |
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| Time |
Speaker |
Topic |
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SECOND HALF |
17.30-17.40 |
Sir David Warren KCMG, former British Ambassador to Japan and later Chairman, The Japan Society |
The Legacy of the First Period of Partnership for Subsequent Years, including Today |
| 17.40-17.50 |
William Horsley, former BBC Correspondent in Tokyo |
A Journalist’s Assessment |
| 17.50-18.00 |
Lord Trenchard, Trade Adviser on Japan to HM British Government and Vice-Chairman, Japan-British Parliamentary Group |
Lessons for Trade Relations today from the First Period of Partnership |
| 18.00-18.10 |
Right Hon Greg Clark MP, Chairman, House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology, and the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Japan |
Japan-British Scientific and Technological Collaboration, the follow-through to King James’s gift of a Silver Telescope |
| 18.10-18.20 |
Bill Emmott, Chairman, The Japan Society, Chairman, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, former Editor of The Economist |
Maritime, defence and diplomatic cooperation today, in the footsteps of William Adams: its relevance in the Indo-Pacific today |
| 18.20-18.30 |
Susan Haydock, former Mayor of Medway and Honorary Mayor of Yokosuka |
Sister city links based on the First Period of Partnership: Gillingham/Medway-Yokosuka/Ito |
| 18.30-18.55 |
DISCUSSION, including Paul Madden CMG, former British Ambassador to Japan |
| 18.55-19.00 |
Nicolas Maclean CMG, Joint Chairman, Japan400 |
Envoi and Thanks |
| 19.00-20.00 |
Sake and Sushi Reception |
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Email any queries to jicc@ld.mofa.go.jp
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