Japan-Vietnam relations (; ) are friendly, stretching over many centuries. Both countries belonged to the Sinosphere and shared early cultural exchanges since as early as the 8th century. While the relationship cooled when Japan entered a period of self-isolation between 17th and 19th century, both countries still witnessed some degree of informal trade during this time. In the late 19th century, their paths diverged, with Japan embarking on the Meiji Restoration and Vietnam was colonized by France and integrated into the French Indochina. In 1940, Japan, now a great empire of Asia, assumed administration of Indochina and directly caused the Vietnamese famine of 1944–1945.
On August 15th, 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies in World War II. On September 2nd, 1945, the modern state of Vietnam declared independence. Both countries, now in the opposite sides of the Cold War, entered to another period of private exchanges, North Vietnam during this time viewed Japanese economic miracle with great suspicion. After the Vietnam War in 1975, Japan assumed the role of a paternalistic foreign aid provider and played a foundational role of reforming Vietnam's economy in 1986, breaking Vietnam's isolation in the world stage and providing official development assistance (ODA) to critical infrastructure.
Now, Japan–Vietnam relations is formally classified as a comprehensive strategic partnership. Both countries have a shared cultural heritage, desire to manage China's aggression and willingness to reconcile the effect of Japanese war crimes. In strategic terms, Japan provides Vietnam economic investment in the form of ODA and naval material to guard the South China Sea. In return, Vietnam provides the homebase for Japanese manufacturing and cheap migrant workers to combat demographic aging in Japan. Generally, the Vietnamese public opinion is very favorable towards Japan for being a reliable partner and a source of popular culture. For the Japanese public, economic disparities between the two nations remain the main tension point, highlighted by the 700,000 Vietnamese migrant workers currently in Japan as of 2026.
History
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.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Abe no Nakamaro, "Japan Encyclopedia, p. 3.
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.Luc, Thuan. Japan early trade coin and the commercial trade between Vietnam and Japan in the 17th century. Retrieved on 8 May 2009.John N. Miksic. Southeast Asian Ceramics: New Light on Old Pottery. Editions Didier Millet, 2009. , p.93.
16th to 17th century
As early as the 16th century, contact between Japan and Vietnam came in the form of trade and bartering.Owen, Norman G., Chandler, David. The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia (p. 107). University of Hawaii Press, 2005. 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 they swiftly destroyed two of the raiders' ships as a warning to the rest to leave or face death; Shirahama fled quickly. Fourteen years later, however, he showed up in a ‘different light’. In 1599, a local official found Shirahama wrecked in the Thuận An sea port, and believing him to be a brigand or pirate, engaged him in a fight, but was killed in the altercation. Shirahama was subsequently imprisoned, but was spared execution. In 1601, Lord Nguyễn Hoàng sent a missive to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the new shōgun of Japan, in which he mentioned the incident, as well as the fact that it involved a citizen of the shōgun’s country. The response from Japan praised the thoughtfulness of the Vietnamese in dealing with the situation, and confirmed that, from then on, all legitimate trading ships sent to Vietnam would bear the Red Seal of the shōgun. 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.Li, Tana. Nguyen Cochinchina: Southern Vietnam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. pp60–61.
Along with Vietnamese ports, Japanese Red Seal ships frequented Siam (Thailand) and Malaysia. Trade was so frequent that 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. Vietnamese traders bought silver, copper and bronze from Japan in exchange for Vietnamese silk, sugar, spices and sandalwood, which fetched a huge profit back in Japan. In order to handle the influx of traders, a Japanese district called Nihonmachi was set up at Hội An. The metals trade was vital to the Nguyen lords, for they needed coins for commerce and bronze to cast guns.
In addition to trade, the two countries enjoyed a warm degree of friendship. Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu exchanged amicable letters and gifts with Lord Nguyen. An aggregate of 34 letters were exchanged between the Tokugawa Shogunate and what the Japanese referred to as An Nam Quốc (安南國), of these letters 15 came from the Tokugawa Shogunate and 19 from the Nguyễn lords based in Quảng Nam. This made Vietnam one of the Asian countries that the Tokugawa Shogunate corresponded with the most during this period. Lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên would even marry his daughter Princess Nguyễn Phúc Ngọc Khoa to Araki Sōtarō, an eminent Japanese samurai-turned-trader.
When Japan entered a period of self-isolation, trade continued to flow, either through the planning of permanent residents or through intermediary Dutch merchants. However, in 1685 the Tokugawa shogunate became aware of the nation's overexploited silver and copper mines, and a trade restriction was put in place. Due to the importance of these metals, the new regulations dampened trade between Japan and Vietnam, as well as much of South Asia.
Despite officially isolating itself from the outside world, references to Vietnamese–Japanese relations can still be found, the Chronicle Đại Nam Thực Lục Tiền Biên written during the 19th century makes references to Japanese trading vessels engaged in commercial operations in both the provinces of Gia Định and Biên Hòa in 1679. On the 22nd page of the 5th volume of the Đại Nam Thực Lục Tiền Biên it notes: "Warships commanded by (Duong) Ngạn Địch and Hoàng Tiến came to the Bàn Lân hamlet (now in Biên Hòa province) via the Lôi Lạp estuary (now in Gia Định province). They reclaimed fallow land and built towns where trading vessels from the Qing Empire, western countries, Japan, and Java flocked." This indicates that trade between the two countries existed even after the sakoku policy was enacted.
19th to 20th century
19th century
A report dated the 10th day of the 12th month of the 16th year of Gia Long's reign (1817) assembled by Lê Tông Chất (the Imperial Delegate for the Northern region) mentioned the tale of five Vietnamese drifters who, while travelling from Gia Định (modern-day Ho Chi Minh City) to Huế, drifted ashore to Japan. The report noted that these soldiers left the city of Gia Định in the middle of 1815 and after a short while ended up in Japan, these soldiers were rescued and supported by local Japanese residents and officials and ended up returning to Vietnam through the Trấn Nam Quan border gate in 1817 after traveling through Qing China.
With the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan adopted a more outward-facing foreign policy, part of which eventually involved more active diplomacy and trade with French Indochina, the colonial state that contained the territory of present-day Vietnam. While Japan's economic transformation and colonial expansion in Asia secured its subjects' elevated legal status abroad (especially in European colonies like French Indochina where one's race was a factor in legal status), it also attracted the attention of colonialism's opponents. A number of Vietnamese nationalists became drawn to Japan after its 1905 victory in the Russo-Japanese War, as Phan Bội Châu encouraged Vietnamese youth to travel to Japan and study in preparation for revolution against the French colonial government in what was called the Đông Du movement; among these students was Cường Để, heir to the throne of the Nguyễn dynasty. The Russo-Japanese War had created diplomatic tension between France and Japan due to France's closeness to Russia throughout the conflict, leading to the Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907. The treaty improved relations between Japan and French Indochina, prompting Japan to crackdown on Vietnamese students in the Đong Du movement who by 1910 had either fled Japan or been deported, including Cường Để who, like Phan Bôi Châu, escaped into self-imposed exile.Phan Boi Chau. tr. Vinh Sinh and Nicholas Wickenden. Overturned Chariot: The Autobiography of Phan-Bội-Châu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999.
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. Alt URL*陳碧純，「山打根的八番娼館」之讀後心得，亞太研究論壇卷期:28 2005.06，頁309-315。http://www.rchss.sinica.edu.tw/capas/publication/newsletter/N28/2806.pdf 佐藤トゥイウェン，「第 4 章「孝」に殉じた天草の「からゆきさん」」，『周縁の文化交渉学シリーズ 8天草諸島の歴史と現在』，関西大学文化交渉学教育研究拠点，2012年。 柏木卓司，『戦前期フランス領インドシナにおける邦人進出の形態-「職業別人口表 」を中心として-』 ， (アジア経済 ) 31(3) 1990 3: p. 78-98。 柏木卓司，「ベトナムのからゆきさん」，『歴史と人物』10月号，中央公論，1979，208頁。 神坂次郎，『おれは伊平次』，講談社文庫，2002/8。 平田豊弘，「松下光廣と大南公司」，『周縁の文化交渉学シリーズ 4 陶磁器流通と西海地域』，関西大学，荒武賢一朗編，2011年。 Ch. Lemire, Les cinq Pays de l'Indo-Chine française, l'établissement de Kouang-Tchéou, le Siam，Juillet 1899． Dean Meyers and My-Van Tran, The Cao Dai, Prince Cuong De and the Japanese in 1937–1939, THE CRISIS OF THE EIGHTH LUNAR MONTH, University of South Australia, IJAPS Vol. 2 (May) 2006. 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. Afterward, Hikida's version of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư would become widely circulated outside of Vietnam.
World War I