Japan\u27s Trade with East and South Africa in the Inter-War Period: A Study of Japanese Consular Reports

This article uses consular reports in order to examine Japan\u27s trade with East and South Africa during the interwar period. Special attention was paid upon such issues as construction of informational infrastructure to collect and disseminate overseas commercial information and the trade strategy to promote Japanese manufactured goods into East and South African market. A number of large, medium and small trading firms were involved in import and export trade after the World War I. Export from Japan entailed serious trade frictions with South Africa and the colonies in East Africa, and Japan unitlized fully economic diplomacy to edge herself into the regions which deemed to be lifeline of her national economy