Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako paid a state visit to the United Kingdom on June 22, where the two monarchs successfully conveyed to the world that Britain and Japan are on board to forge a new chapter in their bilateral relationship. It was a high-profile indication of the growing closeness between the United Kingdom and Japan in recent years.
The relationship has a long history that extends from the Anglo-Japanese naval alliance through the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and into the Great War. While the 1930s and 1940s witnessed a disruption of close monarchical links, the Cold War down to the present saw a resurrection of these ties. Japan-U.K. monarchical diplomacy provides a fascinating view of Japan’s symbolic emperor, who is more meaningful than typical knowledge assumes, as well as the United Kingdom’s role in Asia, extending past the end of empire to the sharpening geopolitics of today.
The imperial couple’s state visit to the U.K. in June was their second goodwill mission abroad since Emperor Naruhito ascended the throne in May 2019. He has described these missions as “one of the most important pillars of duties to be fulfilled by the imperial family.” Their inaugural visit to Indonesia in 2023 was pivotal to the Japanese government’s vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and aligned with the 50th anniversary of Japan-ASEAN relations, with Jakarta serving as the ASEAN chair that year. Similarly, the trip to the U.K. was strategically important.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, like past conservative administrations, uses imperial visits to advance diplomatic agendas. The LDP sought, through the emperor’s latest visit, to institutionalize the U.K.’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific in countering China, renewing confidence in the strong bilateral ties, irrespective of future political shifts.
“Welcome back to Britain,” King Charles III told Emperor Naruhito at a splendid state banquet at Buckingham Palace. The two met when Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako attended Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2023, showing the enduring relationship between the royal and imperial families.
Japan’s imperial couple, both born after the war like the British royal couple, focused on the future of bilateral ties. Still, Emperor Naruhito did not refrain from mentioning the “sad period” of World War II, which King Charles referred to as “the darkest years.” Reflecting on his grandfather Emperor Hirohito’s visit to Great Britain in 1971, Naruhito invoked the long-standing role monarchical ties have played in healing the wounds of World War II. He recalled that during the 1971 state banquet, his grandfather had wished for closer ties between Japan and the U.K., a sentiment his father also echoed in 1998.
To be sure, Naruhito’s imperial visit was markedly different from Hirohito’s visit to the U.K. in 1971, which coincided with the British military’s withdrawal from east of Suez, ending a significant military presence in Asia. At that time, Japan was often perceived as an economic giant but a political pygmy, rarely taking the initiative in geopolitics and diplomacy. But a closer examination of the archival records of the negotiation process reveals that this perception is overly simplistic and often inaccurate. The initiative for Hirohito’s visit actually came from the Japanese side, demonstrating that Japan’s proactive engagement in international diplomacy long predates former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s era.
Hirohito’s visit to Europe in 1971 administered a jolt to collective memory and brought to light the issue of his responsibility for the war, especially when former prisoners of war turned their backs on his carriage in protest. However, it ultimately marked the beginning of a reconciliation process that would be continued by Hirohito’s successor, Emperor Akihito, who sought to address the scars left by the war during his reign. Akihito witnessed those scars firsthand as a teenager when he attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 on behalf of his father.
When Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko made their first official visit to the United Kingdom in 1998, a year after London handed over Hong Kong to China, ending British colonial rule in Asia, there were still some protests. In contrast, his son’s visit this year was a joyful occasion, marking the final installment in a series of imperial visits and signifying that the dark pages of history, with their learned lessons, were now behind Japan and the U.K.
With the reconciliation process complete, the message was clear: it is time to look toward the future. “We will build an even stronger relationship of trust and a forward-looking partnership with the people of Japan to write the next 400 years of our history together,” said British Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom in a statement issued on July 1.
But what is a comeback in the relationship going to achieve?
The United Kingdom, no longer part of the European Union, and Japan, with China, North Korea, and Russia right on its doorstep, are more anxious than ever about the United States’ flirtations with isolationism, which a Trump comeback would likely ensure. Japan needs to diversify its partners and step up in its own interests, and the U.K. is eager to define its focus outside the EU under the new vision of “Global Britain.”
The two signed a defense partnership, the Japan-U.K. Reciprocal Access Agreement in January 2023 – only the second such deal Japan has signed with a nation other than the U.S., its sole treaty ally. The partnership was extended in May 2023 via the landmark Hiroshima Accord, covering defense, trade, investment, science, and technology.
The two nations now refer to each other as their “closest security partners in Europe and Asia,” a relationship highlighted by their agreement, alongside Italy, to jointly develop a sixth-generation fighter jet under the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP). Also not to be overlooked are the joint projects they initiated to secure critical minerals and semiconductors, beginning in 2016 – the pivotal year when Britain voted for Brexit and Donald Trump was elected U.S. president.
Japan also played a key role in bringing the U.K. into the powerful Asia-Pacific trade bloc, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), after the Trans-Pacific Partnership collapsed when Trump withdrew shortly after his inauguration in early 2017. British accession holds strategic significance for both nations – drawing the U.K. further into the Indo-Pacific realm, building a trade bulwark against China, and possibly enticing the U.S., which had been central to the development of the new trade bloc, to rejoin the CPTPP one day.
Recognizing the Indo-Pacific’s importance to future global prosperity and security, the U.K. began strengthening its engagement with the region, contributing to the establishment of the AUKUS nuclear submarine and technology pact with Australia and the United States. Allies such as Japan and Australia, concerned about rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific and in need of support, were also pleased to see the United Kingdom’s “tilt” to the region, which aimed to bolster security and trade relationships to counter China’s threats in “the era of deterrence diplomacy.”
King Charles recognized all this in his speech at Buckingham Palace. “At the core of our partnership is a close friendship; one based on a mutual understanding of the importance of international rules and global institutions,” the King said. He added that Japan and the U.K. now face a world in which “these principles are ever more challenged,” and their “shared values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law are more important than ever.”
King Charles went on: “… I know that our two countries are collaborating ever more closely to provide for our shared security. Our Armed Forces are exercising and sharing expertise at great levels, as befits two powers with an enduring commitment to global peace and security.
Emperor Naruhito, on the other hand, must refrain making political statements to maintain his institutional neutrality as Japan’s national symbol. Thus he did not mention the collaboration on security specifically, but did recognize the growing “multi-layered collaboration and exchange” between the two countries “in various areas, including politics and diplomacy, the economy, culture and the arts, science and technology, as well as education.”
Doubts linger in Japan about whether it can rely on the new government in London. New Secretary of State for Defense John Healey’s reference to pivoting from Asia to the war in Ukraine has certainly added to this anxiety. But the “progressive realism” of the Labor Party, while pushing forward the idea of seeking a new geopolitical partnership with the EU, recognizes the significance of the Indo-Pacific and the strategic regional relationship the United Kingdom has with Japan.
Time will reveal whether the renewed confidence in the relationship, baptized by the two monarchs who played their own parts – something politicians cannot achieve – will be strong enough to navigate the rough currents of the world. But much like how it kept Britain involved in Asia despite the ruptures of Suez and Hong Kong, monarchical diplomacy will likely remain one of the many dimensions of British influence in the region, reminding us of the broad historical basis on which it rests.