Takakazu Kuriyama

Takakazu Kuriyama was born in France while his diplomat father was stationed there and spent part of his childhood in Sweden. He studied law in Tokyo and trained in the United States at Lawrence University and Amherst College. His later posts included ambassador to Malaysia and vice foreign minister before his Washington ambassadorship, which lasted from 1992 to 1995. ^{1, 2}

Kuriyama’s public explanation of the American relationship drew on personal memories of war and trade disputes. Speaking in Honolulu in June 1995, he recalled his family’s escape from a Tokyo air raid and described his career as an investment in reconciliation. He also discussed debating U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor on television during the automobile dispute. He argued that stereotypes about a centrally directed Japanese economy obscured changes in markets and society, and urged more educational and local exchanges. ¹

After retirement he continued to write about reconciliation, extending the question to Japan’s Asian neighbors. In a 2007 Columbia University paper, translated from his own Japanese article, he advocated a regional order that retained an American role while remaining open to China. He argued for peaceful dispute settlement and gradual cooperation, rejecting both exclusion of the United States and a policy of containing China. ²