Early contact In the 8th century,
Abe no Nakamaro, a descendant of the
Imperial House of Japan, entered the Chinese civil service under the
Tang dynasty and eventually served as governor (
jiedushi) of
Annam from 761 to 767. During the 8th century, the Japanese court composite ritual art comprising orchestral music and dance (
Bugaku) known as
Rinyu-gaku is said to have been introduced by a foreign monk named "Buttetsu" (Phật Triết) who came from
Rinyu (Chăm Pa). An archaeological dig in
Kyūshū, the most southwesterly of the four main islands of Japan, revealed fragments of a Vietnamese ceramic with the inscribed date of 1330, but ended in 1332.
16th to 17th century Japanese red seal ship sailing out of
Nagasaki for Annam (Vietnam) '', a Japanese-built
covered bridge in
Hội An Vietnamese official records documented the first contact between the Japanese and the Vietnamese occurred in 1585.
Japanese pirates first arrived on the Vietnamese coast in that year, with five ships, led by the pirate captain
Shirahama Kenki and began to engage in raids and coastal assaults hurting the local populace. Lord
Nguyễn Hoàng’s sixth son
Nguyen Phuc Nguyen mobilized and immediately led a fleet of around ten ships to the Cửa Việt seaport where in swift style destroyed two of the raiders ships as a warning to the rest, that if they do not leave that would be their fate too. Shirahama fearing death fled quickly. Later in 1599, 14 years after that incident, Shirahama now showing up in a ‘different light’ had been found wrecked in the Thuan An sea port, a local official believing him to be a brigand or pirate engaged in a fight with Shirahama, where he was killed in the altercation. Shirahama was subsequently imprisoned but was spared execution. In 1601, Lord Nguyen Hoang sent a missive to
Tokugawa Ieyasu the new shōgun of Japan, which in the letter he mentioned the incident concerning a citizen of the shogun’s country. The response from Japan was one that praised their thoughtfulness in dealing with the situation, and confirmed that, from then on, all their legitimate trading ships would be bearing the red seal of the shogun. Tokogawa declared such ships to be legitimate, and this was the first confirmed official contact between the two governments, which marked the beginning of a then diplomatic trading relationship that lasted for much of that century. As early as the 16th century, contact between Japan and Vietnam came in the form of trade and bartering. Along with
Siam (
Thailand) and
Malaysia, Japanese
red seal ships frequented Vietnamese ports. Vietnamese records show that when the port of
Hội An was opened by
Lord Nguyễn Hoàng in the early 17th century, hundreds of Japanese traders were already residing there. This made Vietnam one of the Asian countries that the Tokugawa Shogunate corresponded with the most during this period. Japanese women called
Karayuki-san migrated to cities like Hanoi, Haiphong and Saigon in colonial French Indochina in the late 19th century to work as prostitutes and provide sexual services to French soldiers who were occupying Vietnam since the French viewed Japanese women as clean they were highly popular. Images of the Japanese prostitutes in Vietnam were put on
French postcards by French photographers. The Japanese government tried to hide the existences of these Japanese prostitutes who went abroad and do not mention them in books on history. During the 19th century the
Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư was distributed in Japan. In 1883
Toshiaki Hikida, a military officer of the General Staff Office of the
Japanese Imperial Army, was assigned his post in Vietnam, during his stay there a local mandarin in
Hanoi would give him a copy of the
Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư which after returning to Japan in 1884 he would publish and reprint there. In November 1914 Japan would supplant the German sphere of influence in southern China with its own political and economic influence, putting it in direct competition with the French Indochina. French Indochina allowed Japan to station troops in the rest of Indochina and ceded further bases in July 1941 after which Japan also began constructing its own military bases to strike against the Allies in Southeast Asia. The Japanese occupation was a partial one in which French Indochina maintained control over its own military and most aspects of government and administration. Even so, when Japan made demands of the French colonial government, it was in no position to refuse. As a result, as the war progressed, French Indochina granted more and more economic privileges to Japanese companies. This precarious relationship between Japan and French Indochina continued until March 1945 when they ousted the colonial government and replaced it with a government called the
Empire of Vietnam, essentially a Japanese puppet state, which stayed in place for mere months until Japan's surrender in August 1945.
Events following the Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina Japanese wartime policies in Vietnam came at the expense of the Vietnamese people. The Japanese ordered the destruction of
paddy fields in favor of
jute cultivation, and hoarded rice for domestic use, which resulted in the
Vietnamese famine of 1945, in which 400 thousand to 2 million Vietnamese died of hunger. In July, the
Việt Minh led attempts to force an entry into Japanese rice silos and redistribute it to starving peasants. The following month,
Trường Chinh wrote an article titled "Policy of the Japanese Pirates Towards Our People" in Issue No 3 of the Communist Review (Tạp chí Cộng sản). In the article, Trường Chinh refuted the Japanese lies to have ‘liberated’ Vietnam from France, and went into detail on Japanese atrocities such as pillaging, slaughter, torture, and rape against the Vietnamese people in 1945. In a document which was translated into English in May 1971, Chinh stated that after turning on
Viet Minh following the removal of French forces, "wherever they went, the Japanese forces burned down homes, murdered law-abiding citizens, raped women, and stole possessions." Many of these leftover Japanese soldiers would work with
Hồ Chí Minh and the
Indochinese Communist Party after the war to fight against French colonialism. In 1965 the North Vietnam–Japan Friendship Association was established to help maintain unofficial relations between the two countries. During the
Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, Japan consistently encouraged a negotiated settlement at the earliest possible date. Even before the hostilities ended, it had made contact with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) government and had reached an agreement to establish diplomatic relations in September 1973. On 30 January 1976 the
Consul-General of Japan in Honolulu in the United States,
Takaaki Hasegawa, was appointed to become the first Ambassador to North Vietnam.—was conducted through Japanese trading companies and the
Japan-Vietnam Trade Association, which was made up of some 83 Japanese firms. Japanese government officials also visited Hanoi in support of trade, but Vietnam's failure to repay outstanding public and private debts inhibited further trade growth. Japanese exports to Vietnam emphasized chemicals, textiles, machinery, and transportation equipment. In return, Vietnamese exports to Japan comprised mostly marine products and coal. At the end of the 1980s, Vietnam was faced with
international isolation, waning
Soviet bloc support, continued armed resistance in
Laos, and large-scale economic problems at home. Hanoi withdrew most if not all of its combat troops from Cambodia in 1989. It appealed to developed countries to open channels of economic cooperation, trade, and aid. Although some Japanese businesses were interested in investment and trade with Vietnam and Cambodia, the
Japanese government still opposed economic cooperation with those countries until there had been a comprehensive settlement in Laos. This stand was basically consistent with United States policy of the time. Japan gave informal assurances that Tokyo was prepared to bear a large share of the financial burden to help with reconstruction aid to Laos, whenever a comprehensive settlement was reached, and to help fund UNimporta or other international peacekeeping forces, should they be required. Japan carried through on its promises. Following the Final Act of the International
Paris Conference on Cambodia between the Laos parties,
Indonesia (as co-chair with France), and the five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council, Japan promptly re-established diplomatic relations and ended economic restrictions with Cambodia and Vietnam. In November 1992, Tokyo offered Vietnam US$370 million in aid. Japan also took a leading role in peacekeeping activities in Cambodia.
Akashi Yasushi, UN undersecretary for disarmament, was head of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, and Japan pledged US$3 million and even sent approximately 2,000 personnel including members of the
SDF, to participate directly in maintaining recently restored peace. Despite the loss of a Japanese peacekeeper killed in an ambush, the force remained in Cambodia until the Cambodians were able to elect a new government. Following the war, Vietnam joined
ASEAN in 1995 and
ASEAN Plus Three consultations, which include
China, Japan, and
South Korea were established in 1997. These nations share a place in the Southeast Asian economy and security framework. On 30 October 1998 the
Hải Vân Tunnel Construction Project was started, which was mainly financed by a loan provided by the Japanese
Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF). The ODA pledged for 2011 by Japan reached 1.76 billion
US dollars, which was four times larger than the donation from South Korea, Vietnam's second biggest donor, at 412 million. Moreover, Japan's 2012 committed amount of donation to Vietnam raised to 3 billion dollars. Bilateral cooperation on defense has been enhanced since the
Haiyang Shiyou 981 incident in 2014, as both countries have experienced territorial issues with China. In a speech in May 2014, Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe affirmed that Japan would provide Southeast Asian nations its "utmost support" in their South China Sea territorial disputes. In March that year the leaders of Vietnam and Japan agreed to upgrade bilateral relations to be an "Extensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia", this new relationship promised to let both countries collaborate more closely with each other in a large number of fields including politics, economics,
national security, culture, and human exchange. and they agreed to cooperate on regional issues including the
South China Sea, where China's growing aggressiveness in disputed waters has drawn concern from neighboring states. Following Chinese Foreign Minister
Wang Yi's high-profile visit to Vietnam in September 2021, Japanese Defense Minister
Nobuo Kishi shortly followed afterwards with his visit, inking an accord to export Japanese-made defense equipment and technology to the Southeast Asian country and the two countries agreeing to boost cooperation amid China worries. On 28 September 2022, on the occasion of the state funeral for
Shinzo Abe, Japan's former prime minister, in Tokyo, Vietnam's president
Nguyễn Xuân Phúc was one of only seven heads of state which met with
Japanese Emperor Naruhito. Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính attended the 49th G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan in 2023. == Economic relations ==