When the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) officially opened in Giza, Egypt on November 1, 2025, few observers noticed what the numbers revealed. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) financed over 80 per cent of the museum’s 84 billion yen (US$1 billion) construction budget. Directional signage across its halls appeared in Arabic, English, and Japanese. The choice of languages, especially in Japanese, was an act of geopolitical inscription. Why did JICA invest in GEM? What kind of interests does Tokyo have in the Egyptian museum? Japan’s approach to museum diplomacy has reconceptualised the very meaning of ‘influence’ itself. Rather than competing directly with other Asian powers through military bases, trade corridors, and security partnerships, Japan is moving into the realm of cultural memory and so-called civilisational stewardship. Japan’s investment in the GEM represents a deliberate way of embedding long-term influence not through debt-laden infrastructure mega-projects, but through the shaping of how societies understand their own pasts and futures.

For decades, Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) has been synonymous with technical excellence and disaster resilience. Nonetheless, Egypt was not an obvious arena for Tokyo’s strategic outreach.  Japan’s ODA policy has changed significantly since its postwar origins, shifting from mainly commercial interests towards more strategic geopolitical deployment. The choice of Egypt is something more calculated: a recognition that influence in the twenty-first century is increasingly contested through control over how societies understand their pasts and imagine their futures. Where some powers build ports and highways, Japan is learning to build meaning itself.

The symbolic significance is difficult to overstate. As the world’s largest........

© E-International