ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the contemporary history of the relationship between 1960 to 1991, the period that marks the beginning of South Africa’s international isolation due to its apartheid policies and the resumption of Japanese-South African diplomatic relations to the ending of apartheid legislation and the lifting of Japanese sanctions against South Africa. In spite of Japan’s importance for South Africa’s trade and South Africa’s insignificance for Japan’s trade in terms of rank as a trading partner, it was mainly Japan that made the effort to expand the relationship. The “turning point of Japan’s inroads into South Africa,” according to Kitazawa Yoko, an outspoken critic of Japan’s involvement in the South African economy, came in 1970 when the two governments started cooperation at national-level schemes. The items which Japan exported to South Africa shifted from light industrial products to heavy industrial products and machinery, reflecting the change of the industrial structure in Japan.
