Nassrine Azimi: Japan's Iran Moment
[Nassrine Azimi is senior adviser at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (Unitar).]
In April 1953, defying the British, the Japanese petroleum tanker Nissho Maru left the port of Abadan in southern Iran, its hulls filled with crude oil. The owner of the tanker, Idemitsu, was one of only a handful of companies that dared buy Iranian oil in those days — two years earlier the Iranians had nationalized their oil industry, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was fighting back.
The head of Idemitsu, a legendary industrialist named Sazo Idemitsu, did well — he paid the cash-strapped Iranians 30 percent less than market prices. But in standing by the Iranians he also gave Japan, just emerging from a devastating war and seven years of American occupation, a sense of pride. Though Idemitsu was rebuked by his own government, his action was highly popular in both countries.
In a small former warehouse in the port city of Moji, on the island of Kyushu where Idemitsu was born, the company bearing his name has a display showing, among other things, photos and film footage of the Nissho Maru incident. Among them are black and white images of Iranians cheering as they see the tanker off in Abadan and beaming Japanese greeting its arrival with great fanfare in Japan.
Ties between Japan and Iran flourished and in the 1960s and early ’70s. Today, Japan still relies heavily on Iran for its oil imports (about 12 percent of its imports in 2009), but relations have been lukewarm since the 1979 Islamic revolution....
With its young and educated population, its massive gas and oil reserves, its long history, its savvy business class and its 3-million-plus diaspora, Iran could bring stability to Asia’s western flanks, positively influencing the development of the entire continent.
The admiration and affection with which Iranians hold Japan should encourage Tokyo’s greater engagement. In the process, both sides could earn economic dividends by addressing Iran’s pressing infrastructure and technology needs.
Japan can afford to act from a position of principle. As Idemitsu would probably have reminded his compatriots, it makes good business sense to take short-term risks so as to be, in the long run, on the right side of history.
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
In April 1953, defying the British, the Japanese petroleum tanker Nissho Maru left the port of Abadan in southern Iran, its hulls filled with crude oil. The owner of the tanker, Idemitsu, was one of only a handful of companies that dared buy Iranian oil in those days — two years earlier the Iranians had nationalized their oil industry, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was fighting back.
The head of Idemitsu, a legendary industrialist named Sazo Idemitsu, did well — he paid the cash-strapped Iranians 30 percent less than market prices. But in standing by the Iranians he also gave Japan, just emerging from a devastating war and seven years of American occupation, a sense of pride. Though Idemitsu was rebuked by his own government, his action was highly popular in both countries.
In a small former warehouse in the port city of Moji, on the island of Kyushu where Idemitsu was born, the company bearing his name has a display showing, among other things, photos and film footage of the Nissho Maru incident. Among them are black and white images of Iranians cheering as they see the tanker off in Abadan and beaming Japanese greeting its arrival with great fanfare in Japan.
Ties between Japan and Iran flourished and in the 1960s and early ’70s. Today, Japan still relies heavily on Iran for its oil imports (about 12 percent of its imports in 2009), but relations have been lukewarm since the 1979 Islamic revolution....
With its young and educated population, its massive gas and oil reserves, its long history, its savvy business class and its 3-million-plus diaspora, Iran could bring stability to Asia’s western flanks, positively influencing the development of the entire continent.
The admiration and affection with which Iranians hold Japan should encourage Tokyo’s greater engagement. In the process, both sides could earn economic dividends by addressing Iran’s pressing infrastructure and technology needs.
Japan can afford to act from a position of principle. As Idemitsu would probably have reminded his compatriots, it makes good business sense to take short-term risks so as to be, in the long run, on the right side of history.