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Cultural Foundations of Japan's foreign policy under Abe's administration

Golovastova Elizaveta Igorevna

Abstract

japanese cultural diplomacy

This research is going to be dedicated to the study of the cultural foundations of Japan's foreign policy towards Russian Federation during the period of Shinzo Abe administration.

The aspect of Cultural Diplomacy evolution is going to be taken as a historical cultural foundation of the foreign political and economic course development in Japan. Not only official public Cultural Diplomacy is going to be covered, but also crucially important implementation of it in the sphere of private business -- one of the main musculoskeletal system of Japanese economic development. The analysis of implementation of Cultural Diplomatic strategies by public and non-governmental sectors is going to be divided according to the outgoing initiative.

The importance of concentration on the instruments of Cultural Diplomacy as an element of Soft Power policies as a useful tool of efficient projection of economic and political interest on the global arena is going to be widely discussed. Furthermore, the research is considered to cover the one of the most relevant spheres of study in contemporary international relations, highly related to the questions of peaceful methods of interest achieving, and assumed to become a scientifically useful informational resource of a particular case study of Japanese historical experience analysis, which is the development of contemporary Japanese approach to successful harmonisation of economic national interest in historical conditions of impossibility to conduct sharp economic or aggressive political policies.

The study is going to be based on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative methods, with the concentration on observation of existing literature and accurate analysis of mass media and social networks. It is expected to reveal and, thus, cover a number of scientific gaps and limitations of study in the field. In addition, the peculiarity of research is considered to be an additional concentration on the real practical experience of the author of the research, who is involved into the field of study through the author's professional career.

Contents

japanese cultural diplomacy

• Abstract
• Introduction
• 1.The explanation of Reasons, History, Logic and Directions of development of Japanese Cultural Diplomacy
• 1.1 Historical preconditions
• 1.2 Development of Cultural Diplomacy as driving element of Economic Prosperity
• 1.3 Elaboration of the new image and Japanese mass culture transformation
• 2.Cultural Diplomacy Conduction by Governmental Sector
• 2.1 The Government as an encourager of Cultural Diplomacy: Introduction
• 2.2 History of development and evolution of responsibilities of the official public organizations till present time
• 2.3 Another step to formalization. Explanation of «Cool Japan» concept and other examples of its' implementation
• 3.Cultural Diplomacy Conduction by Nongovernmental Sector
• 3.1 The importance of Japanese business for development of Cultural Diplomacy, and vice-versa
• 3.1.1 The most influential promoting tool: The role of Anime for business
• Conclusion
• References

Introduction

The modern world is experiencing a new era of development, which is largely influenced by the growing, almost uncontrollable globalisation process, which increase in its pace every second. People of the world are facing such trends which are both positive and negative, such as increasing interconnection between states and individuals, changes in international hierarchy, involvement of cross border communication technologies, growing population, evolution of weapon and chemistry and so on. Such conditions also gives birth to newly emerging domestic and international threats, which governments of states have to prevent and avoid with some special accuracy, as far as less controlled processes lead to a more fragile peace. The world is seeking the new decisions and the new approaches to the individual safety and international security, in attempt to find a perfect balance between safe and secure national interest projection without any provocative aggression and efficiency of such projection, so that it would lead to a desirable, beneficial outcome.

In this research, the author is going to make an attempt to demonstrate the case study of Japan, the government of which, being forced to refuse from almost all the army and hard power capabilities, was able to successfully project its economic interests completely peacefully, without any military threat from their side. The assumption is being made, that one of the main drivers of Japanese economic success was the redirection of the approach to the means of Cultural Diplomacy, which is considered to be the one of the main aspects of Cultural Diplomacy. Thus, the author considers it to be of high importance to follow the development of Japanese success in purpose to make an attempt to show that importance and efficiency of such methods as cultural export of a country should not be neglected by modern government while considering their foreign policy, making their own impact into the keeping international order without war and prolongation of peaceful coexistence and prosperity of all the members of international society as long as possible. So that, the research is going to be conducted in attempt to answer the question what are the specifics of Japanese cultural policies in Russia, taking into consideration the historical and political context and trend of Russian-Japanese relations of the last years.

There will be also attention payed to the cultural values change in the beginning of Cultural Diplomacy formation, and evolution of its change. However, basically, cultural foundations in this research are not supposed to imply the cultural-historical aspect or approach-generating cultural values, but the formation of an instrument of Japanese Cultural Diplomacy on the background of those. Thus, especially, the attention is going to be payed to the development of Cultural Diplomacy as an aspect of Soft Power, which helped Japan to reach one of the top position in international economic hierarchy. Looking ahead, one of the limitations of this research is the fact that it is going to be concentrated on the cultural policies towards Russia only. The study of implementation of cultural policies under Abe's administration is going to be approached mostly as a period of time or particular (the latest one, current) stage of development of cultural relations with russia, which includes not only the conduction of cultural diplomatic policies on official, governmental level, but also by the private sector (consequently, for commerce purposes as well, which positively impacts the general course of administration). Regarding Abe's cabinet in particular -- the elaboration of official concept under the name «Cool Japan» is going to be an object of observation. There will be drawn a large number of practical examples, which paved the road to the increasing level of interconnection and cultural cooperation between Russia and Japan. Moreover, the practical involvement and experience of the author of the research into the sphere of the topic (as far as it is the author's sphere of professional career), is going to become an innovation and peculiarity of the particular study, alongside with being a reason of quite high authors' interest to the sphere. Furthermore, it can be claimed to increase availability of the latest reliable and relatable information for the author.

The particular research is also going to indicate a further room of research and determine the importance of further study, as far as the main reason of studying in this case is a purpose to find more potential instruments for states to keep peace on the international arena without giving up on their national interests, but acquiring more beneficial cooperation for all the parties of it. It is important to underline, that the author of the study does adequately understand, that it is not possible, in contemporary situation and on existing theoretical basis, to find a perfect universal formula of peaceful means of interest protection and projection for all the states, but a case study of a historically successful result is supposed to become a one more step in direction to the potential solution, leading to more harmony in the world international system, as much close to an ideal as possible. Moving forward, as far as the object of this research is a real case study of historical development, including the whole range of particularities of historical events and coincidences, the author acknowledges it necessary to take a more closer look to the history of evolution of peaceful Japanese approach to the interest projection and, thus, coming up with the decision to elaborate a confident implementation of soft power policies.

Today's prime-minister Shinzo Abe, who have been keeping his position in Japanese government administration for the longest period of time since the year 1971, can be claimed to acquire this position due to a historical context of a long administration period of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. A new party which was formed and came to power under the quite strong, if not almost direct, pressure of American occupation powers during the period after the Second World War, when Japanese people could be said to experience a deep national feeling of destroying humiliation due to their painful defeat in the Second World War. Due to that great loss in the war, Japanese government found itself in the position, in which it was almost physically forced to become a subjected to democratisation process from above. Japan was made to refuse from its own army and was provided with a promised protection from the side of the government of the USA, which also made a decision to build their military bases on the territory of Japan. In such conditions, despite the fact, that Japan acquired a protection maintained by a militarily strong great power, Japanese state sovereignty appeared to be under threat. So that, the new Japanese government faced a necessity to search for a new, non-military spheres of influence and interests protection from American intervention to their sovereign divisions, both on international arena and domestically, in purpose to avoid becoming a complete American vassal. That was the very peak, when Japanese decided to accept a new, so to say, «national worldview» and ones and for all to get rid of the feeling of loss, which was damaging and weakening from inside. The course to a new, so to say, «peaceful Japan» was determined, and the direction to the change of its image in the eyes of international society was taken. First, on domestic level, the government started to work on the reconstruction of the way Japanese treat themselves in purpose to heal their deep sense of loss and humiliation, and awaken they strength of spirit and patriotism again through the means of culture. The idea was to turn Japan from the country of aggressor, or «defeated samurai», into a a land of «beautiful geisha», prosperity and technology, and use such a turn in economic and political purposes by spreading such cultural propaganda abroad, gaining new economic cooperation as a result. That was a policy of movement to a prosperous, self-sufficient state, which, as a research shows, can be considered to. Japanese administration started to develop cultural policies and it appeared to be a very useful tool for achieving great economic results, such as becoming one of the largest capitalistic centres of international business and commerce. During the age of economic boom(1960s, 1970s), Japan managed to become one of the biggest capital markets both regionally and globally, one of the wining strategy of which was the application of Soft Power tools and cultural policies instead of aggression. Effective spread of cultural values and the development of cultural propaganda policies conducted through specially established institutes and organisations (such as, for example, Japan Foundation, special devisions of Japanese embassy, etc.), Japan started to change its image in global arena and facilitated its road to foreign capitalistic markets, getting more and more wealthy. it should be underlined, that such a success of Japanese business led to the dramatic rise of its' influence on political processes, which will be more widely covered in the research.

Moving closer to the discussion of Russian-Japanese relations, covered in the research, it is important to underline one more time, that Japan's cultural policies were proliferating successfully, and there can be noticed a rise of mutual interest for cooperation between Russia and Japan since 1990s, which can be claimed to appear due to Russian economic potential growth and its' capital market expansion. with time, this interest seems to increase dramatically during 2000s, and its upward trend continues to be observed at the present time in 2020. According to Gabriel (1997), it can be said, that already in 1990s it was completely possible for Japan to compete America in terms of Cultural Diplomacy.

As far as the national economic interest remains to be the major one for Abe's administration, today his cabinet is working on economic and political strategies and continuing to progress with efficiency of cultural propaganda (which acquired a name «Cool Japan»), which is being made alongside with the involvement of Japanese business into cultural exporting strategies implementation (already in commercial purposes, mostly). The one of the top secrets of success of such strategies can be described in one word which is «non-threatening» to the political system of Russia. All the cultural policies, developed by Japanese Government and even those conducted by Japanese business can be said to be quite safe for Russian cultural (and political) environment. Exported Japanese values tend to adopt to a recipient's culture, but not change it aggressively, in contrast to, for example, American propaganda. The carefulness of such measures and very founding elements which are being shared and spread by Japan, do not present any harm to the way things are organised in recipient state, either this measures don't put under question any ideas existing in that state, but simply adopt. As an outcome of such specifics of Cultural Diplomacy, Japanese side is able to rise awareness of itself, rise positive attitude among the population of different social status, and make itself attractive in various perspectives, especially as a big, rich capital market.

Moving to the methodological aspect, the author would like to start with explanation of importance of methods used in the study. Ones again, for the global study of International relations as a discipline, the concentration on the study of Japanese determination of cultural strategies towards Russian Federation seems to be quite challenging to overestimate due to its relation to a quite important search for peaceful strategies of influence on international relations. That is why methodological aspect is considered to be quite significant for the field of study of international relations due to its specific features as an academic discipline. For the conduction of this particular research the mixture of qualitative and quantitative scientific methods is going to be used. The data for quantitative analysis and the official information on the practical examples, end empirical evidences of cooperation in details are going to be derived from the most reliable sources (as much up to date as it is possible and allowed to find), such as official online websites of official organisations as Japanese embassy in Russia, Russian embassy in Japan, the OECD (the organisation of economic cooperation and development), the WB (the World Bank), the Year of Japan in Russia (2018 - 2019), the Russian Customs Services and some other sources.

In purpose to cover a necessary background of the historical and theoretical aspect, these are going to be investigated through the inclusive content analysis of a wide range of the most important existing literature of the highest relevance to the topic and problematics, where the gaps and limitations will be attempted to be found, focused on and covered, thus revealing and underlining the importance of further development of study in this field. The particular topic of the research is not popular enough in scientific society, comparing it to other topics of wide current interest. Nevertheless, it was possible to find a number of great and important scientific researches, highly related to the history of development of cultural diplomacy in Japan and its relation to the progress in other spheres, such as political, economic, etc., which cannot be ignored by author, despite the fact that there, of course, some limitations exists, such as not enough up to date literature with specification on more recent cultural policies or a problematic way of data collection.

Moreover, the information is going to be extracted from the most popular channels of social networks and media resources as well, with a special attention payed to the accuracy and objectivity of its analysis. Such additional analysis of social networks is supposed to be conducted due to the logical impossibility to neglect such a precious evidence base and illustrating material, as fas as the internet channels for public communicational service became one of the greatest and quick channels of cross border interconnection for the humanity. The very ability to use social networks is evolving every year, every day, so that the author considers it to be of high importance to show the results of its progress since even 10 - 20 years ago, and use it mostly for illustrational means.

Furthermore, the concentration is going to be made on a case study of the relations between Russia and Japan, which can be approached from at least two points of view. First is that it is going to limit the whole range of Japanese worldwide cultural policies' implementation to the range of one recipient country -- the Russian Federation -- as an object, which can be considered both as a limitation of the research and as an opportunity to dig deeper in the specifics of one concrete case. So that, second is the deepening of the research in the field of Russian-Japanese relations, taking a more closer look on the observation of real up to date examples of mutual cooperation.The attention is going to be payed also to the comparison differences of implementation of American and Japanese cultural propaganda policies, as far as both of them can be considered to be the most successful states using cultural strategies, but based on different approach. Such a comparison is going to be covered mostly in the closer literature review and treated as a relevant explanatory element.

The research is going to be divided into several parts, among which there will be the historical development and evolution of official approach to policy formation discussed widely in purpose to explain, in more detailed way, how and due to which historical conditions Japanese government was forced to take the path of democratisation (which measures were taken and how did it manage to influence in such an efficient way on the economic development of Japan). The historical part is going to be given in a more explicit way in purpose to increase the explanatory basis by using a more concrete historical context, which has payed a way to the contemporary order of things, views and strategies.

In this paragraph, the author is going provide a closer look to content analysis of an existing literature. Ones again, the literature review is going to cover theoretical and most of historical grounds, including the majority of sources of literature, used in the research. Theoretical part is going to be mainly dedicated to the explanation of the theoretical background of ideas developed, as far as the author of the research is making an attempt to claim that the very success of Japanese identity spreading strategies, (which, in fact, are the Cultural Diplomacy itself) is one of the main important driving factor of Japanese economic success, which led Japan to the one of the top highest positions in the economic world, whose influence is recognised internationally. The tutor is going to provide an explanation of this phenomenon by analysing the main works of theorists of neorealism (Defensive), Liberalism and Constructivism.

Starting with Neo-realism, the question of creation of special institution of cultural diplomacy can be approached in adollowingv way. As far as neorealism is still based on the general approach of realist tradition, it presupposes the main features of realism, such as uncontrollable eternal anarchy in international relations, the balance of power among states, which build the international order, and the security dilemma, which influences the balance of power because of the mistrust between states, making them to securitise, thus increasing the threatening component against one another. Such situation creates eternal competition, which anyway lead to repetitiveness of wars in international arena. There are two times if neorealism, which is, as a positivist theory, is able to describe and explain the existing status quo: offensive neorealism and defensive neorealism. She scholars advocating for offensive neorealism provides more explanation for more aggressive behaviour of states and power maximisation, as it can be found in the work of Mearshimer (2001), «The Tragedy of Great Power Politics», whereas, the defensive neorealism, which was widely explained by Waltz (1979), provides the idea of keeping the balance of power at the existing level by minimisation of security dilemma. The defensive neorealist idea is that states do not own their greedy and aggressive nature, but simply are seriously threatened by the security dilemma, that is why they are not trying to threaten other states (as offensive realism puts it), but to keep the order as long as possible to keep peace. This argument simultaneously partially explains and undermines the intention of Japanese to acquire a better position among international players. On the one hand, cultural propaganda is called exactly to provide Japan with a better position, changing its place of «defeated country», but on the other hand, it is made through soft means without any threatening aggression of empowerment, in purpose to continue the process of development in terms of economy. The discussion can be built upon the understanding of economic growth as a factor of threat and upon the perception of it as a threatening element, because it can be approached both as a threat and as a great perspective to cooperate. Turning back to the question of explanation of cultural diplomacy by neorealism -- it can be treated as the explanatory instrument of intentions, in purpose to assure neighbours in growth with no aggression, it can rise the understanding and slow down the progress of the security dilemma. There is no intention to increase hard power in purpose to show power in defensive neorealism. States are quite socialised and they do have an understanding of previous historical experience, thus they do not seek for more wars and conflicts. In context of realist desire and necessity to assure self-defence, defensive neorealists tend to approach any aggression as self-defeating for states. They do rather underline the importance of development of economic development and cooperation, creating stable trade relations (including alliances), for which, in this particular case study, the cultural diplomacy policies had a great role. That cannot decide a problem of war occurrence once and for all, but it is treated to be a great solution for a prolongation of period of an international peace. For example, stable trade relation are able to decrease the miscalculation (which is a reason for war to happen) of the behavior, helping to predict it, decreasing thus the level of mistrust and suspicion, meaning the increase of possibility to hold peaceful relations much longer. Of course, that is not perfect, and the security dilemma is going to progress anyway, but slower, as far as the balance of power will be tightened. So there can be made an assumption that the implementation of cultural diplomatic strategies can be one of the quite efficient layers in building the economic cooperation. However, the explanation is oriented on supportive function of any kind of diplomatic policies as a stage to achieve a result. There is also and opposing in its origins, but also appropriate in its explanation, theory.

Liberalism in international relations is also considered to be a positivist theory, explaining the existing status quo. Liberalist approach is build on opposing ground to realism, and is believed to provide a better explanation of cooperation between states, rather than conflicts. It focuses on creation of rules, norms, institutions and organisations between states. Liberalism as a theory was created after the end of the First World War in purpose to prevent another one, but first liberal institutions, such as the League of Nations, were highly criticised for its failure (because of being too optimistic and too voluntary oriented) to prevent the Second World War (despite the fact that is in not, of course, fair to blame young liberal institutions only, as far as there are a lot of more deep reasons). In spite of the fact, that Liberalism is confronting to the realism, it is also seems to explain the successful implementation of Cultural Diplomacy policies. Basing on the argumentation of the founding fathers of liberalism, such political philosophers as John Locke and Emmanuel Kant, the school of liberalism considers it natural for states to seek cooperation and peace in, also, anarchical structure of international system. The nature of human being as well as the states' one is not that greedy and cruel, not seeking for violent hard power. So the scholars of liberal school believe in the work of institutions as peacemakers, not only as tools of prolongation os period of peace. They consider that wars occur due to misunderstanding among or between states the reason of which is the lack of information. The institutions provide more information, and the rules and institutions also provides order and are able to assure the way of behavior, to some extent. Ideally, in theory, the system of perfect liberal institutions should be created in order to achieve peace. So, it is possible to finds some points in common between defensive neoliberalism and realism, but the final approach to peace and war is quite different. Liberals also has a special attitude to institutions as instruments for states to achieve a harmony of interests, which is not possible for realist school of thought. Liberal institutions help states to find common interests and earn from cooperation. This is much more beneficial to have trade relations, for example, than go to war. That is why the institutions of diplomacy and of economic cooperation are worthy for liberalism. These all help solve rising conflicts peacefully, without hard power, but softly. Liberals are believed to think that there is a greater amount of relations in different fields besides just security. There are also scientific, economic relations, technological and cultural exchange, and so on and so forth. These are also becoming the stages and elements which lead to successful economic developments and strong ties, and cannot be neglected (and, they can be said to be neglected by the followers of realist school of thought). Moving further, talking about ties, there also was developed a theory of «complex interdependence» by Nye and Keohane (1998) (2000) (these authors worked on a number of works dedicated to the topic, starting since 1970s), which underline the growing trance border interconnection among different layers of the societies, and the states are getting extremely tied together. The role of the whole range of formal and informal institutions as mechanisms of dependency is increasing as well. The process is also can be said to be fuelled by the phenomenon of uncontrollable globalization. Their first work of 1970s became a considerable challenge to political theorists of realist school of international politics and also it turned into a foundation of current political theories, which are categorised as liberalism, liberal institutionalism and neoliberalism. This theory is considered to be relative to the question of study of this research on the same basis of liberal theory, but adding the explanatory element of interconnection rising. Moreover, in the analysis of Nye and Keohane's «complex interdependence» theory provided by Rogerson (2000) the continuation of discussion can be found along side with the deepening of it in the question of current decade of information technologies, using the term «information interdependent». The author of this study finds it quite relative to the explanation of success of cultural strategies, as far as it explains the evolving ability by actors to use various channels and networks. The reciprocal effect can be achieved with a higher efficiency due to the evolution of technologies such as internet, which unite people into a large international network of overwhelming freedom (except a number of examples).

Another theory which, according to the opinion of the author, is the best for the particular case study explanation is a theory of Constructivism. Its main difference is that it is not a status-quo theory. It is an anti-positivist one, organized over the problem, that everything in international politics is just a social construct, which means, that as far as it is constructed by people, it can be also changed by people. People have shaped and continue shaping all the existing social practices which they are embodied in. According to the founding father of constructivism, Wendt (1992), and his famous phrase «Anarchy is What states make of it», the main idea of the theory is the idea of vicious circle of mutually dependent, unstoppable change, when identity of state, which have been formed by the system or structure it exists in, is being an engine of change in the same structure of system. This system is probably the best in the explanation of Japanese case of Cultural Diplomacy implementation, as far as it reveals the very possibility for Japan to change its image, the identity of itself, in the eyes of the outer world, thus changing their perception about Japanese intentions, for example. That image perception reconstruction became a crucial step for Japan to acquire one of the highest positions in the world hierarchy, making it by the means of soft power. The idea also finds its reflection in a term «structuration», provided by Giddens (1984). The positivist Realism and Liberalism are also able to explain cooperation between state, for example, anyway, given their permanent understanding of state identity as rational egoists, they will limit the explanation solely by the material interest. But for constructivists, the rational interest of state is, as everything else, is a social construct, which can be changed. For example, in the same way as Cultural Diplomacy may peacefully change the perception of the country abroad. However, the criticism of Wendt's (1992) theory of Constructivism also exists. Despite Wendt (1990) considers Constructivism to be a critical theory, a number of scholars tend to criticise Wend (1990) in inaccuracy for using the same methods of proof as positivist theorists do. Nevertheless, the explanation remains quite powerful in scientific circles. However, concluding the discussion of the political theory background, the author considers it possible to switch to the explanation of terminology, such as Soft Power and Cultural Diplomacy.

Moving to the discourse of the theoretic background of terms explanation, it is important to notice ones again, that the very idea of Japanese Cultural Diplomacy is widely believed to be originated from the notion of Soft Power. This concept is still being widely discussed by many scholars, who try to find the answers whether the implementation of Soft Power concept as a way to gain power peacefully can be considered reliable and efficient. However, mostly the definitions, on which the majority of the researches of different scholars rely, do, to some extent, coincide with one provided in the work of Nye (2008). Joseph Nye is considered to be the first scholar to imply such a term as soft power, and the key assumptions were made over Public Relations, propaganda, psychological operations. According to the scholar, the concept of soft power can be determined as the ability to produce an effect on others in purpose to obtain the results and outcomes which are wanted through the means of attraction and peaceful instruments rather than payment or any coercion. Similar definitions can be found in the works of such scholars as Roselle et al (2014), Wilson (2008) (who, in their turn, criticizes soft power for lack of institutional, conceptual and political dimensions), Yang (2010) and some others. So that, in attempt to make another comprehensive general definition, it is possible to say that soft power is the complex of factors of social consciousness, which determine the attitude of social group (the population of the country, elite, some particular social classes etc.) to any subject of politics and thus increasing or declining the impact of this subject on this particular group, which tend to be realized on symbolic, value and ideological levels. Thus, soft power has a tendency to launch social stereotypes, influences on perception, activates historical archetypes and collective perception or notion of masses. It uses psychologically attractive forms of presentation of information for recipient. It leads to the usage of Cultural Diplomacy tools to be undisputed. The fact that Cultural Diplomacy can be fairly considered as the one of the key tools of soft power is quite widely shared and treated positively by many scientists in the field. Otmazgin (2012), as it was previously said, gives one of possible definitions, quite well-comprehensive and brief, in which Cultural Diplomacy is determined as a propaganda of the domestic image of the country and its politics among foreign societies. Such a definition seems to be wide acceptable among other scholars, such as Winter (2014), Waller (2009) and many others. Moreover, the conclusion made by Otmazgin (2012), that the use of culture as a tool of diplomatic and political influence help Japan to promote its geopolitical interests is highly effective while changing a perception of country among foreign societies, it can be claimed, is shared by a number of other scientists, who made researches in the field, despite there were different scientific methods and approaches implemented. For example, it can be seen in the works of Benedict (1967), Gabriel (1997), as well as in some more resent works of Kelts (2006), Buruma (2015). Anyway, it may be found in common among the majority of scientific works, that Cultural Diplomacy can be fairly considered to be the one of the historically oldest directions of governmental activity and performance, in spite of the fact, that the very terminology and the term “Cultural Diplomacy” came into the wide implementation in scientific social, economic, political and cultural discourse only during the last 25 years of twentieth century (which also means the rise of the interest to the organized study of such a subject). The majority of countries of the world in the contemporary period put a special emphasis on the development of Cultural Diplomacy, among which Japan is related to the number of states, which are especially active and directive in their implementation of cultural diplomatic tools and performance of Cultural Diplomacy all over the world in a successive way. There is an analysis given by Daliot-Bul (2009) on the more recent concept of “Japanese Brand” formation, which is a newly developed concept of 2002, “Cool Japan” (the concept of cultural brand promotion, officially introduced by Abe's administration in 2013), in purpose to provide positive reflection of the particular cultural policies conduction and proof of their efficiency and success. In his work, Daliot-Bul (2009) provides a comparative analysis of the selection of the strategies developed by the institutions in the field of Japanese popular culture promotion and its cultural identity. The author provides argumentation that Japanese Cultural Diplomacy has reached success not only in promotion of industry through culture, but it also revealed to be an efficient tool of mobilization of local nation. Furthermore, Daliot-Bul (2009) makes an attempt to conduct an analysis of existing challenges of contemporary period, which official cultural policymakers tend to face.

In other words, Cultural Diplomacy and strategic cultural policies' implementation reveals itself as a engines of progress in terms of ideological changes, becoming the tools of very changes, which, in their terms (being themselves influenced by, for example, some specific conditions of economic or political relations) influence on the changing of existing system of relations. Being influenced by political and, especially, economic interests of governments, Japan started to promote its cultural influence in Russia due to the economic development of Russia, and this cultural image promotion, which already had played the role of idea-transformation tool, influenced on the rising positivity of the further development and strengthening of relations between Japan and Russia. Thus, such an explanation of the relevance of the constructivist theory to the promotion of Cultural Diplomacy in the face of Soft Political tool is found by the author to be a great demonstration on practice.

Having defined what Soft Power and its one of the most powerful tool -- Cultural Diplomacy -- is, as well as the relevance of theoretic background for the explanation of the changes provided through soft cultural policies, there can be made a step further to the analysis of its main instruments, perception of it and its evolution through the periods of the late 20th century and the beginning of 21st century.

The author would like to stress out the limitations of content analysis conduction due to the existing gap in the literature, closely related to the particular topic of the research, on the period of 1990s. There is a quite narrow range of sources of literature written concretely on the topic of Japanese - Russian relations during the 1990s, especially in the field of culture or particular cultural policies implementation. The works concentrated specifically on the topic of Russian - Japanese relations in terms of Economics and Politics have also been found to exist in a quite small number (for example, the data on Purchasing Power Parity in Russia, or the circle of goods and trade etc.) Thus, the assumption can be made that the relations between these two states cannot be considered to be studied well during 1990s due to the several number of reasons, and need closer look in the further scientific researches and studies. However, there assumption can be made as well, that the relations in any sphere of political or socio-economic life were not quite close between these two states to be considered as defining ones. Moreover, during the 1990s the internet was not developed and that widely accessed as it is today, thus, a problem to finding some proper data in the open sources rises at least. The lack of information for analytical study conduction in such sphere, thus, can be fairly considered quite tangible. There can only be made an attempt to find some correlations which influenced on the development of the Japanese interest paid to the Russia in the years of 1990s and the beginning of 2000s. Due to the existing gap in the literature, such correlations can be attempted to be found through the analysis of the literature describing, for example, the domestic conditions of Japan and Russia separately (in terms of content analysis method, used in the research). Such works as Borowy (2011) (who was concentrated as well on the differences between domestic crisis situations in Russia and Cuba), Kalotay (2004), Desai, Freinkman and Goldberg (2003) (the work was published by the World Bank, the data provided by which is going to be used in this research) etc., provide quite wide argumentation on and description of the disastrous condition of Russian devastating crisis situation in 1990s, which can serve to be the main reason of almost nonexistence of Japanese interest to be involved in the development or close interests' interconnection of that moment. Thus, it is still difficult, but possible to assume the correlation between the factors of political and especially economic crises' influence of Japanese attitude to the perspective development of relations with Russia, the expenditure on the Russian market and, thus, developing some special cultural strategies, which will underpin the satisfaction of such interests.

The discussion of the importance of economic interests for Japanese can be found in the existing literature in greater number, however, limited by the concentration on particular periods. There are almost no mentions of the conduction of Cultural Diplomatic policies towards Russian Federation, as well as there was quite limited amount of literature found to be concentrated on economic relations between Russia and Japan in particular. However, there is a number of works, the common grounds of which can be seen to meet at the point of explanation of importance of economic interests, again, for Japan, such as works of Mosk (2016), Yamashita and Fukao (2010) (the work was dedicated to the observation of activity of Japanese Multinational Corporations and strategies of market expansion), Calder (1988) (who explains the very tradition of formation of national economic policies in Japan historically) etc. Such a fact can serve an argument to the continuation of discussion of the previous argument and show the ability to find correlation between Japanese economic interests and desire to promote Cultural influence through the sophisticated “brand development” strategies, which underpin the economic influence, and which started to be largely described and analyzed by such scholars as Daliot-But (mentioned above) and Valaskivi (2012), who also distinguish the concept of Cool Japan as a way of successful promotion of imagery popular culture abroad through different available means, including the progressively developing sphere of social media etc., as well as a tool of national culture creation at the local level (in Japan). The work of the Japan Foundation is widely discussed in these more resent works.

Once again, as far as during the last years there have not been conducted any large study of the Japanese cultural diplomatic policies, its challenges, strategies of adaptation and efficient implementation, especially in relations with Russia (here, the particular research is considered to be a quite new and authentic), in addition to the content analysis there will be an attempt to analyze the official resources and sites of organizations and institutions with a high rate of reliability, in purpose to reach more resent data for comparison, as it was already mentioned above. The implementation of such method and approach to the search of the sources is based on the gaps, which has been found in the particular works of scholars, relative to the topic of study, and overall authenticity of the research question. The research is aimed on the reaching of these gaps and definition of the further, less wide, field of research of high necessity and importance.

In addition to the words above, there should be the emphasis put on the development of technologies ones again, by which it is possible today to reach any sort of information online (by the means of internet) and due to this fact, the special attention should be paid to the one of the most inclusive and powerful spheres of cultural influence and one of the most efficient fields of Cultural Diplomatic policies conduction - the sphere of Social Media. The overwhelming development of the internet makes it to be an undeniable fact. Considering the role of The distinguished importance of the role of Anime (one of the most successfully exported cultural image-constructing brand product of Japan) as a successful method of achieving expectations in implementation of cultural policies could be seen in works of Drazen (2002), Ito (2005), and more resent works of Denison (2011), Napier (2005). That is why the author of the research considers it necessary to dedicate a large part of practical evidence to the export of Japanese anime. There can be drawn one more example of work analysed, which criticise Japanese cultural product for its not enough uniqueness in Asia, such as work of Iwabuchi (1998), who was writing before the great rise of Internet technologies. Iwabuchi (1998) tends to argue that Japanese cultural products has comparatively little influence in the Asian region despite its uniqueness, because Japan fails to create such a globally recognized iconic product such as MacDonald's or Coca Cola, thus to create something with such a great audience reach, which limits its capabilities in cultural diplomacy and its capability to use it as an efficient instrument in actual global meaning. The author achieves such an idea through the research concentrated on Asian countries as well. But as far the research is made around twenty years ago, it can be claimed that such an idea, even being proved at that times, is already appears to be out of data. The same could be said about the methodology, because now due to the process of globalization, already more sophisticated modern sources of information and tools of scientific research can be used. In this further research author will try to show that today's Japan seems to succeed more in the sphere of development and implementation of Cultural Diplomatic tools and created quite a great number of modern iconic goods and images which are recognized all over the world, especially using Anime as a specific tool (but not solely, of course). Especially today, it is impossible to deny that Manga and Anime, which acquired masses loyalty in different countries, are considered one of the most recognizable brand of Japan, which helps to achieve commercial benefit in a quite efficient way, having a quite large and various audience. It can be claimed that Anime «sells» Japanese culture the most, thus it cannot be ignored.

As far as one of the assumptions, made by author in this research, is an assumption of ability of Japanese cultural strategies to adjust to the system of target state, the work of Hunt (2009) is also considered attention worthy, as a quite relative comparison of Japanese and American way to conduct the spread of culture abroad. According to Hunt (2009), who provides a wide discussion on the formation and the development of identity and ideology of American society, the ideological propaganda of the USA is so aggressive, that American culture, which is being spread alongside the general image of the US, is aggressive at the same level. Of course, many scholars would agree that the American cultural propaganda can be fairly considered to be the one of the greatest in the world, especially in the age of open public access to numerous sources of information and easy transition technology, available for masses. American cultural export can be considered a mass culture with no doubt, and the USA managed to create a quite strong image, and a range of recognizable associations all over the world. However, far not all the societies treat it well, and these associations are not always positive. Hunt (2009) writes, that the overestimated and overwhelmed, hyperbolized and mostly even fake patriotism of Americans, in fact, fails to unite the society domestically, and in fact their nation, which consists from a several generations of immigrants, mostly, does not have a long history of existence, and their culture os quite new, highly tightened to the aggressive, expansionist liberal-democratic ideology, which simply cannot be accepted everywhere. Hunt (2009) demonstrates a quite skeptic point of view, distinguishing the fact, that, being obtrusive and obsessed with liberalization and democratization of the world, American cultural propaganda and ideological spread are quite frequently lead to generally senseless wars, which are, in fact, are wars started by egoistic and commercial interests of the USA under cover. Comparing such aggressive spread of values with a pattern of Japan, it can be quite easily noticeable, that having much longer history and much more tolerant and adjusting to the political systems and traditions of other countries, Japanese culture, being spread, brings almost the same amount of economic and political benefit to Japan. Gabriel (1997) in his study also distinguished the ability of Japanese cultural diplomacy to compete with American in its success in helping to achieve economic prosperity already by 1990s. Japanese cultural diplomacy never lead to wars and conflicts, or undermine the sovereign government. It can be fairly considered totally «soft». Thus, the name of «diplomacy» seems to fit better to the cultural diplomacy of Japan, then to American one. In a research, provided by Ward (1963) there can be followed an idea about Japanese specifics of «political modernization», which makes it have more in common with western societies rater than with Asian societies, which had lead to the Japanese development of unique path, taking into consideration the paradox that it is much more far from Europe and USA in its geographical location, than from Asia. Nevertheless, it is also possible to make a conclusion from the work of Ward (1963), that already at the time of his writing, it was quite notable, that it was, probably, endogenous society, which helped political culture formation in Japan, and by far has been helping to export successfully Japanese cultural values. That is quite a common fact, that there cannot be endogenous society in the USA in present times, as far as this lend of immigrants is in fact quite young and fool of local disputes (somewhere sharper, somewhere less, despite the fact of the American sense of patriotism).