Finland enjoys a positive country image in Japan, where, reportedly,
enthusiasm for things Finnish reached the state of a ‘boom’ during the
2000s–2010s. What is this positive visibility based on? To shed light on
the foundations of Finland’s visibility in Japan, this article tracks
Finland’s national imaging there from a historical perspective. Through
an empirical study of Finnish diplomatic archives, the article looks
beyond nation branding – the latest mode in the official promotion of
states to foreign audiences – and opens a window into the past practices
of Finland’s official promotion in the distant East Asian case. In the
1960s, the Press Bureau of Finland’s Foreign Ministry drafted an image
policy to support Finland’s neutrality and to broaden the country’s
interaction with the West. The policy was implemented through Finland’s
embassies, and therefore Finland’s newly defined characteristics also
became actively promoted in Tokyo. As a result of this intensification
of Finnish public diplomacy in the Cold War, many of the modern aspects
of Finland’s later nation branding in Japan were introduced. Of the
redefined official autostereotype, cultural and commercial dimensions
proved the easiest to promote, whereas its foreign political dimension
was met with the most local contradiction.