Harvard expert Ezra Vogel says Japan’s Empress Masako will perform role ‘effortlessly’
- Vogel was commenting on Empress Masako, a Harvard graduate and former diplomat, ahead of her husband Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement ceremony next week
- The Japan and China expert has known Masako since she was in high school, due to his friendship with her father, former vice-foreign minister Hisashi Owada
Ezra Vogel, the famed US expert on Japan and China and professor emeritus at Harvard University, believes Empress Masako will prove an effective communicator for Japan on the world stage due to her diplomatic experience and command of languages.
“She’ll be able to do it effortlessly,” said Vogel, a long-time friend of the empress’ family, in a recent interview.
Vogel, 89, first met Masako when she was a high school student. He was invited to a family meal by her father Hisashi Owada, 87, who became a visiting professor at Harvard in 1979. The scholar is a long-time friend of Owada, a former vice foreign minister and president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“She was a very quiet and serious girl, very different from the usual talkative American high school students,” he recalled.
Before her marriage, Empress Masako studied at Harvard University between 1981 and 1985, graduating magna cum laude in economics. Vogel never taught her but observed when she took part in student discussions under a programme about US-Japan relations, which he led at Harvard.
The 1980s were marked by fierce trade frictions between the two nations, and Vogel remembered the future empress explaining Japan’s position to other students while seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the US position.