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Tuesday 12 March 2024

Conference Videos - The First Period of Japan-British Partnership 1600-1623

Conference Videos - The First Period of Japan-British Partnership 1600-1623

The Japan Society was delighted to support The Double Twelfth Conference: The First Period of Japan-British Partnership 1600-1623 at the Embassy of Japan in the UK on Tuesday 12 December 2023. Organised by Japan400, this special event commemorated the start of diplomatic, trading, scientific and cultural relations between Britain and Japan in 1613.

The video recordings of the presentations and discussions are now available on the Embassy of Japan YouTube channel.

Chair
Leslie Downer, Author, Broadcaster and former JET  

Speakers

Sir Tim Hitchens, KCVO CMG, former British Ambassador in Japan and now President of Wolfson College, Oxford: “The Japan400 commemoration as seen from Tokyo”  

Professor Timon Screech: “Overview of the Period”  

Associate Professor Thomas Kinoshita Lockley: “The first Japanese to visit Britain: 1588”  

Professor Richard Irving: “William Adams, Man and Myth”  

Dr Margaret Makepeace, East Asian Specialist, British Library: “Key Documents from the Period”  

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”  

Professor Nandini Das, Oxford University, and author of “Courting India”: “The Anglo-Japanese initiative set into a global context”  

Discussion, including Ms Hiromi Rogers, author of “Anjin-The Life and Times of Samurai William Adams, 1564-1620 as seen through Japanese Eyes”  

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”  

William Horsley, ex BBC Correspondent in Tokyo: “A Journalist’s Assessment”  

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”  

Bill Emmott, Chairman, The Japan Society, Chairman, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, former Editor "The Economist": "Maritime, defence and diplomatic cooperation today, in the footsteps of William Adams: its relevance in the Indo-Pacific today." 

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”  

Discussion, including Nicolas Maclean CMG, Joint Chairman, Japan400