Australian officials were stationed in Japan as early as 1903. It was not until 1940, however, that formal state diplomacy commenced between the two countries with the opening of Australia's first diplomatic mission in Tokyo. Amongst mission staff were such notable figures as Sir John Latham, Keith Officer, Albert Hard, Patrick Shaw, and Tom Eckersley. Latham (improbably) was on leave from the High Court, Officer was a legendary figure in External Affairs; Shaw (later Sir Patrick) rose to become Ambassador in Washington where his untimely death occurred, and Eckersley became one of the Department's Japan specialists. One of the Australia-appointed staff—a Gallipoli veteran born in Nagasaki—gained notoriety for being the first individual employed by External Affairs and sent to a foreign post, to die as a result of their service.
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Agenda
- Food + Drinks
- Presentation by Guest Speaker
James Cotton
James Cotton
Emeritus Professor at University of New South WalesJames Cotton (PhD, London School of Economics) is Emeritus Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, ADFA, Canberra. He was a Procter Fellow at Princeton in 1975, and a student at the Beijing Yuyan Xueyuan in 1980. He was Australia Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, in 2009. His 'Australia and the World 1920–1930' and 'Australia and the World 1931–1936' were published in the Documents in Australian Foreign Policy series (jointly published by the University of New South Wales Press and the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade) in 2019 and 2021. His most recent book is: 'The Australians at Geneva. Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years' (Melbourne University Press, 2022).
More information about speaker
- Q & A
