Remembering Jimmy Carter’s Lifelong Friendship With Japan

Editor’s note: This commentary was written by Jessica Cork, vice president of digital strategy at YKK Corporation of America.

I was in Hiroshima this week when I heard the news that President Jimmy Carter had passed away. It was a fitting place to reflect on his life and legacy, and I said a prayer for him as I rang the bell in Peace Park, just steps away from where the atomic bomb detonated during World War II. 

President Carter’s foreign-policy accomplishments, such as the Camp David Accords with Egypt and Israel and the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, are well known, but few know of his work as an early champion of Japanese investment in the United States. 

Mr. Carter was instrumental in laying the foundation for the “unbreakable bilateral relationship” that Japan and the United States share today, a story in which the state of Georgia and our company, YKK, have played a supporting role. 

In 1972, while Mr. Carter was governor of Georgia, he had a visionary plan to attract investment from an unlikely source – Japan. 

YKK, a Japanese zipper manufacturer, was searching for a location for its first manufacturing facility in the United States. At the time, no Japanese companies had manufacturing operations in Georgia, and Japan accounted for only 4 percent of all foreign-owned manufacturing sales nationally. 

But Mr. Carter believed that Southern culture and Japanese culture were compatible and that Japanese companies making long-term plans for the American market would bring benefits to the state. 

Then-Gov. Carter met with YKK founder Tadao Yoshida, and the two men quickly bonded over a shared commitment to serving local communities and society. YKK purchased land in Macon, Ga., in 1972 and opened its new manufacturing plant in 1974. YKK has remained committed to the Macon community despite many challenges and global shifts over the last 50 years. Today, the company employs over 2,000 Americans, 1,600 in Georgia alone. Hundreds of Japanese companies have joined YKK in setting up operations in Georgia and they collectively employ more than 30,000 Georgians.

As part of his strategy to attract long-term partners from Japan, Mr. Carter opened a trade and tourism office in Tokyo in 1973, making Georgia among the earliest states with an office in Japan. The Japanese government followed suit, opening a consulate in Atlanta in 1974. 

Mr. Carter continued to make the U.S. relationship with Japan a priority as president. He hosted Japanese prime ministers at the White House three times during his term, and he made two state visits to Japan, becoming only the second sitting president to visit the country. 

But what the people of Japan appreciate most about President Carter is his citizen diplomacy. Always one to connect with everyday people, Mr. Carter always made sure to visit small towns on his trips to Japan. During his 1979 state visit, he participated in a town hall with residents of Shimoda, the place where the 1854 trade treaty with the United States was signed. He held similar town halls in 1984 in the town of Kurobe (YKK’s home) and in 1994 in the village of Konu (the home of the “Peace Bell” gifted to Mr. Carter by the Japanese community in Georgia). 

Over the years, he has also welcomed many Japanese visitors to his hometown of Plains, Ga., including three generations of the Yoshida family and many delegations of high school students from that same small village of Konu.

Jimmy Carter’s visit to Kurobe in 1984 has become legendary. Knowing his passion for running, the city held a road race in his honor and Carter was to serve as the official starter. After firing the starter’s gun, to the delight of the crowd (and the dismay of the Secret Service!) he suddenly jumped off the podium and joined the race with 1,500 participants. The event has grown to become the annual “Carter Memorial Kurobe Meisui Marathon,” now one of the biggest marathons in Japan. 

During his years as governor of Georgia, president of the United States, and global humanitarian, Jimmy Carter was always able to connect with people on a personal and human level. No matter where he was and no matter how different the culture, he always found ways to forge a bond, the starting point for friendship.

In his own remarks at Hiroshima Peace Park in 1984 as the first former U.S. president to visit the city, Mr. Carter reflected on the lessons from a conflict that was then still recent history. He saw the peace that had taken root as fragile without constant cultivation. 

“Although our relationship is secure, this tragedy can still occur between powerful nations if we fail to apply the lessons we have learned in the past,” he said, calling for the purging of nuclear arsenals and the resolution of conflict through dialogue.

As he told the people of Konu, 10 years later: “The things that bind us together are much more important than those that are different.” 

That sentiment, more than anything else, is Jimmy Carter’s legacy.

Jessica Kennett Cork is vice president of digital strategy at YKK Corporation of America. She is chair emeritus of The Japan-America Society of Georgia and previously lived in Hiroshima for three years as a JET program participant.