The Japan Forum on International Relations, Inc. JFIR

The Japan Forum on International Relations, Inc. (JFIR or The Forum) was founded on March 12, 1987 in Tokyo on the private initiative of Dr. Saburo Okita, Mr. Ichiro Hattori and 61other independent citizens from business, academic, political and mass media circles of Japan. They agreed that a policy-oriented research institution in the field of international affairs independent from the government was most urgently looked for in Japan because the world now wanted to know not only what the Japanese Government spoke about but also what the Japanese people thought about. They were also convinced that Japan was now expected not only to think about its own role in the international community but also to contribute to breaking new ground in the search for a new world order.

The Forum is a nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improved understanding of Japanese foreign policy and international relations. The Forum takes no institutional position on issues of foreign policy, though its members are encouraged not only to analyze but to propose alternatives on matters of foreign policy. Though the Forum helps its members to formulate a policy recommendation on matters of public policy, the views expressed in the recommendations represent in no way those of the Forum as an institution and the responsibility for the contents of the recommendations is that of those members of the Forum who sign them alone.

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