On Thursday, June 20th, 2019, a special lecture by Dr. Nobuhiro Ihara was held at Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, hosted by the University’s Asia Japan Institute, Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR), and Institute of International Relations and Area Studies (IIRAS). Dr. Ihara is an associate professor affiliated with the Global Media Research Center, Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University. Dr. Ihara received his PhD degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and his research interests are communication and political signaling between states, Japanese public diplomacy as well as the relations between Japan and ASEAN member states—with numerous academic works related to those issues, both in English and Japanese.

Dr. Ihara's lecture was titled "Japan's Public Diplomacy in the 1970s: Rebuilding Japan's Image in Southeast Asia". He kicked off the lecture by explaining the reasoning behind his decision to conduct research regarding the topic, arguing that the connection between individual public diplomacy acts and positive increase in state image is not yet studied extensively. He also provided several examples—such as the World Cosplay Summit—to familiarize the audience with the concept of public diplomacy. The second part of the lecture divulges Japan's public diplomacy in the 1970s and Japan’s negative image among ASEAN states. Dr. Ihara noted the strategies typically employed by the government at the time did not do much to alleviate the fear of Japanese military resurgence, diplomatic ambiguity and resentment towards Japanese economic activities in Southeast Asia. The third and last part analyzes the turnaround for Japanese public diplomacy in Southeast Asia, which was initiated by a series of strategies introduced by Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo in the late 1970s. Those strategies—commitment to peace, heart to heart diplomacy and mutual dependence—would form the so-called "Fukuda Doctrine", which will form the basis of Japanese public diplomacy towards ASEAN states and the positive image Japan enjoyed for the years to come.

The lecture concludes with a Q&A session, during which Dr. Ihara and members of the audience went back and forth to dissect several concepts and events surrounding Japanese public diplomacy, which was not limited to Southeast Asia but also towards its neighboring states, namely South Korea and the PRC.