The Role of Sports Diplomacy in U.S.-Japan Relations in 1998-2020

The relationship between sports, international affairs, and diplomacy is long and complex. Sport can be utilized to encourage development, social awareness, and human rights. The world of sports is continuously changing and expanding. One of the changes is the introduction of new sporting events to the Olympic Games. In the recent years, there have been a lot of talks of adding the eSports category in the Olympic roster, which caught the International Olympic Committee’s eye. That is how the Olympic Esports Series was created. Though, the eSports discipline is still too immature to be brought up in the conversation of using sports as a soft power tool. In this work, the main methods that have been chosen are comparative and descriptive case studies. The relevance of the work is highlighted by ability of sports diplomacy to find new ways to improve international collaboration and relationships when the traditional diplomatic institutions face the same challenges over and over. By analyzing the historical context of the U.S-Japan relationship and looking at the Olympic Games, where both nations were present, it becomes prominent that sports diplomacy has managed to improve the relationship between the United States and Japan. The Olympic Games in particular create an atmosphere, were countries can fell protected, which results in a positive trend for fostering peaceful and prosperous relations.