As New York's Japan Society approaches its 100th anniversary in May, its chairman, James McDonald, remarked on the institution's growing impact on business, culture and U.S.-Japan relations since the group's founding by influential Americans in 1907.
McDonald, the group's chairman since 2005, called the simple fact of the society's 100-year existence remarkable in light of the war once fought between the two nations.
"The continuity of the connection has been a major achievement," he said. "Certainly, in the postwar time frame, for the last 50 years or so, it's just very impressive how broad and deep the activities led by Japan Society have become in all of these areas of connection between Japan and the U.S."
The society's programming has evolved during the postwar period to fit the changing needs of the U.S.-Japan relationship, McDonald noted in an interview.