Toward the end of the 19th century, diplomat Manjiro Inagaki emerged as a brilliant geopolitical strategist for Meiji Era Japan.

The son of a feudal retainer of the Hirado domain in what is now Nagasaki Prefecture, Inagaki studied at Cambridge University before becoming a part-time professor at Gakushuin University. Inagaki went on to become a diplomat, serving as an official envoy to the Kingdom of Siam and then to Spain, where he later died in Madrid.

Inagaki penned, in impeccable English, the book "Japan and the Pacific, and a Japanese View of the Eastern Question (1890)." Here, Inagaki wrote: "It has often puzzled me why Japan does not hold closer relations with Australia, especially as Australia is becoming one of her most important neighbors in commerce."