Japan is the world’s second largest national economy—accounting for one- seventh of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 10 per cent of world exports and imports—with the seventh largest population of just over 120 million. There is no doubt that oil served as a key factor in shaping and altering the relations between Japan and the Gulf states, but it is an oversimplification to analyze the Japan-Arab Gulf relations solely from the perspective of energy. With the progression of time, Tokyo gradually concentrated its effort in diversifying the fields of potential cooperation with the GCC states, including increased investment and human contacts, thereby laying grounds for closer ties of interdependency. One of the characteristics of the Japan-GCC relations lies in the fact that they were often determined less by issues of bilateral concerns but rather by wider regional and international developments. This research, through analyses of key events—including those outside the bilateral—in Japan’s involvement in the Arab Gulf region since the beginning of the twentieth century, aims to identify factors which shaped the course of evolution of Japan-GCC relations.
