Address by His Majesty the Emperor at the State Banquet at Buckingham Palace

25 June 2024

Your Majesties,

Thank you, Your Majesty, for your warm words of welcome. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the invitation you have extended to the Empress and me for this State Visit, as well as for the tremendous consideration and efforts that you and the people of the United Kingdom have shown in making it a reality. In fact, the original invitation was issued five years ago by her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, whom I greatly admired. Unfortunately, however, the visit had to be postponed due to the impact of COVID-19. It is truly our utmost pleasure that it is finally taking place now.

Your Majesty has just referred to our two countries’ longstanding ties. We also very much appreciate Your Majesties’ kindness this afternoon in showing us items from the Royal Collection related to Japan. We now have an even stronger sense of the deep significance of the exchange between Japan and the United Kingdom forged over so many years. I am personally pleased and also grateful to have played a part in the exchange between the two countries, having studied in the United Kingdom, during which time I interacted with many people and in particular was privileged to enjoy the very warm company of members of the Royal Family. There was previously the sad period during which the friendly relationship between our two countries suffered, and hence I am struck by profound feelings as I extend my thoughts to what was in the minds of my grandfather the Emperor Showa and subsequently my father the Emperor Emeritus as they set foot in this country after times of great difficulty, as emperors of Japan at the invitation of Her late Majesty. The Empress and I would like to express our deep respect and gratitude to those people who have dedicated immeasurable efforts to the friendship between our two countries extending firmly into the future.

At the State Banquet in 1971, my grandfather voiced his heartfelt wish for the people of both Japan and the United Kingdom in various walks of life to interact ever more closely and frequently and to talk to each other with open hearts. It was also my father’s sincere hope that our two peoples would continue to strive for true mutual understanding and to join hands in the cause of world peace and prosperity, as was expressed on the occasion of the subsequent State Banquet in 1998.

Today, our society is increasingly diverse and complex, facing various global challenges. It is necessary to address these critical issues by further amassing wisdom from around the world. Against this backdrop, I am extremely pleased that, in line with the fruitful dialogue between the peoples of our two countries conducted over the years with an open heart and with a quest for true mutual understanding, we have seen, and will continue to see, a myriad of areas whereby Japan and the UK lead the world in collaboration and cooperation.

One such area is the contribution that Japanese and British scientists have made to the world through cutting-edge medical research. Knowledge of iPS cells came to the fore through the research of Dr Shinya Yamanaka for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This was based on the preceding research by Sir John Bertrand Gurdon, who was the joint winner of the Nobel Prize, and has led to significant innovations in regenerative medicine. At the Francis Crick Institute, which I will be visiting tomorrow, many people including young researchers from our two countries are working together and taking on momentous new challenges in the areas of cancer research and countering influenza.

Meanwhile, I made a personal visit yesterday to the Thames Barrier, built in the aftermath of the 1953 North Sea Flood. The development of the capacity to predict storm surges in the UK owes a great deal to the role played by a Japanese scientist, Dr Shizuo Ishiguro, the father of Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, the British novelist of Japanese extraction and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Dr Ishiguro was invited to join a UK research institute, where he developed a practical model for the accurate and timely quantitative prediction of storm surges in the North Sea. According to Sir Kazuo, the analog computing system that Dr Ishiguro developed based on his research looked like a TARDIS, a time machine from the BBC drama “Doctor Who”. I believe that the unique interdisciplinary innovation by Dr Ishiguro, cutting across electronic engineering and oceanographic science, continues to be a major source of inspiration for both Japanese and British researchers today, transcending time and space.

During this visit, I look forward to visiting for the first time in 23 years the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, of which your Majesty is a patron. There, I hope to see the efforts made by the Millenium Seed Bank in preserving seeds to avoid their extinction. May I pay my respect concerning the initiatives Your Majesty has taken, with both passion and a sense of urgency, in such critical areas as climate change and biodiversity. I am also encouraged that many people in both our countries are taking a keen interest in such environmental issues and are dedicating themselves to the resolution of these challenges. I have been told that seeds of Japanese red pine and other plants have been donated to the Millenium Seed Bank by Iwate Prefecture. They include those from the same type of tree as the “miracle pine tree”, which was the only one to survive the tsunami damage in the Takatamatsubara pine grove from the Great East Japan Earthquake, during which tens of thousands of pine trees were uprooted. I believe that the seeds will be preserved long into the future as symbols of resilience, recovery from the earthquake, and friendship between Japan and the UK.

I look forward to visiting again the Royal College of Music, where I can see its state-of-the-art Performance Laboratory, as well as to visiting with the Empress Young V&A, where we will have a chance to interact with children from both our countries and gain a direct sense of how our culture and art are inspiring children, transcending borders and time. We also plan to visit Oxford, sorry, maybe the wrong place for Your Majesty, where the Empress and I both experienced the life and culture of this country as students, and hope to make our humble contribution to promoting bilateral cooperation in the areas of academia, research and education, as well as exchanges between our younger generations. The relationship between Japan and the UK has been fostered through people-to-people exchanges over the years and generations. It would be a source of immense satisfaction if our visit to the United Kingdom could help to firmly pass on the friendship and goodwill between our two countries to the young people and children who in the future will take on the reins of our relationship and develop it even further.

Today, as Your Majesty also mentioned, the multi-layered collaboration and exchange between our two countries is accelerating in various areas including politics and diplomacy, the economy, culture and the arts, science and technology as well as education. Our bilateral relations have never been more robust. We can say that we are fortunate to have been given the opportunity to climb even higher on this grand, broad-based mountain, guided by the path trodden by our forebears, with a feeling of gratitude, respect and pride in our hearts. It is my sincere hope that both Japan and the UK, as friends like no other, will continue to make untiring efforts for true mutual understanding through exchanges of their people, thereby building an enduring relationship based on friendship, goodwill and cooperation.

I would now like to propose a toast to the good health of Your Majesties, to the further development of our bilateral relationship and its contribution to the world, and to the lasting happiness of the people of Japan and the United Kingdom.