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Brazil will host the 19th meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20) in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024. It officially assumed the G20 presidency on December 1, 2023. As Brazil and Japan have asserted higher profiles in world affairs in recent years, their bilateral relationship has entered a new phase. Here are some snapshots of the new possibilities emerging in Japan’s relations with Brazil and South America.
Ensuring an Increasingly Beneficial Presence
Iijima Masami
Chair of Japan-side of the Wise Group for Strategic Economic Partnership between Brazil and Japan
Substantive interaction between government and business representatives of Brazil and Japan has fortified the framework for nurturing bilateral ties. An especially effective platform for that interaction has been the Wise Group for Strategic Economic Partnership between Brazil and Japan. That group originated as a result of the September 2004 summit in Brazil between then-Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and then-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (who would regain the presidency in January 2023). It held its first meeting in 2007 and has convened 11 times, most recently in April 2023.
Iijima Masami, formerly the CEO of the trading house Mitsui & Co., is a driving force in the Wise Group. He joined the group in 2013 and became its chair of Japan-side in April 2023. He shares here some thoughts on Brazilian-Japanese ties.
“Brazil’s and Japan’s strengths are complementary and compelling. That is especially notable in the struggle to curtail global warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Brazil gets about 92% of its electric power from renewable energy sources. We’re talking for the time being there about hydropower, but Brazil has begun tapping its incredible potential in wind power and solar power, and we can expect to see surging growth in electric power from those sources. Brazil has similarly incredible potential in bioethanol fuel, which has been powering cars on Brazilian highways for some 50 years. The nation is expanding production of sugarcane, the main raw material for that fuel, and is developing a growing range of applications for its bioethanol fuel.”
“Japan wields advanced technology that meshes well with Brazil’s fundamental assets. Combining our strengths will yield important progress in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, as in second-generation bioethanol, biogas, sustainable aviation fuel, and green hydrogen. The present Lula administration has been espousing a bold environmental commitment since its launch in January 2023. North American and European corporations are taking note and making offers. Japanese corporations can ill afford to miss out on this opportunity.”
“Japan needs to build more-resilient, more-diverse supply chains. The Lula administration, meanwhile, is devoting high priority to strengthening Brazil’s international competitiveness in manufacturing. The implications here for stepped-up economic integration ought to be obvious.”
“Japanese business benefits hugely in South America from the presence of large ethnic-Japanese communities, and we are the subject of great expectations. This can be a mutual win-win situation as Japanese companies contribute to economic vitality in their host nations and as they tap the uniquely valuable capabilities and perspectives of those nations’ ethnic-Japanese human resources.”
“The Japanese government did the right thing this year when it exempted short-term tourist or business stays by Brazilians from visa requirements. I hope that the government will keep doing the right things to bring Brazil and Japan closer together. That ought to include concluding an economic partnership agreement (EPA) as soon as possible with South America’s Mercosur common market.”
The foreign ministers of Brazil and Japan, Mauro Vieira and Kamikawa Yoko, met in New York in September 2023 when they attended the United Nations General Assembly. They reaffirmed common interests and shared perspectives between Brazil and Japan in regard to several regional and global issues.
Photo courtesy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Latin America’s Ethnic-Japanese Communities
Most of the ethnic-Japanese communities of Latin American nations have won respect and acceptance in their nations over histories that exceed a century. The Japanese immigrants built industries from scratch and contributed to economic development in their chosen homes. They endured hardship but persevered and overcame, thanks partly to the kindness and open-hearted support extended by their indigenous neighbors.
Brazil’s ethnic Japanese community comprises some 1.9 million people, the largest such community in the world. Brazil’s landmass is 22 times larger than Japan’s, but ethnic Japanese are a presence all across that landmass. That is a tribute to the pioneer spirit of their predecessors and to the pride that has distinguished successive generations.
The high regard earned by ethnic Japanese in Latin American nations is a huge asset for Japan. Intermarriage is blurring the racial lines between ethnic Japanese and their indigenous neighbors, but social and technological dynamics are bringing people closer to Japan than ever before. That is happening, for example, through anime and manga and through online access to Japanese cinema. It is happening, too, through cultural-exchange events sponsored by the ethnic-Japanese communities, such as traditional festivals and folk dancing. Japan also becomes a more familiar presence as a growing number of Latin Americans travel there for tourism or for academic study or vocational training.
Enduring Respect
Ethnic Japanese’s social standing varies somewhat by nation, but the ethnic Japanese communities retain a consistently high level of respect. That engenders promising opportunities for Japan in cultivating new channels of interchange with Latin America. Note, meanwhile, that not all of Latin America’s ethnic Japanese participate in organizations formally affiliated with their ethnicity.
Lots of Latin America’s ethnic Japanese build careers and businesses simply as “Brazilians,” for instance, or whatever. Some of them operate completely off the radar of ethnic-Japanese organizations, the Japanese embassies, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and other such monitors of Japan’s ethnic presence. Those off-the-radar ethnic Japanese frequently engage in extensive networking in local society. They represent a potentially valuable resource for Japanese companies and public-sector organizations in undertaking projects in Latin America.
Latin America, though prone to instability in public administration, outpaces Japan by far in spawning venture start-ups and unicorns. And ethnic Japanese—some high profile, some less so—play a vital role in the entrepreneurship.
