Belgium–Japan relations are the bilateral relations between the nations of Belgium and Japan. Belgium has an embassy in Tokyo and five honorary consulates in Sapporo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Fukuoka. Japan has an embassy in Brussels.
First official relations (1866-1893) On 1 August 1866, Japan and Belgium signed the Japan-Belgium Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation. On the Belgian side, it was negotiated and signed by August t'Kint de Roodenbeek, the first Belgian diplomat to visit Japan after the country opened up in 1859. On the basis of this bilateral treaty, a Belgian vice consulate was established in Yokohama on 28 March 1867, headed by the Dutch businessman Maurice Lejeune. In the late 1860s, Belgium was represented by the Dutch minister-resident Dirk de Graeff van Polsbroek, who was also able to negotiate bilateral trade treaties with Japan. T'Kint de Roodenbeek was succeeded by Emile Moulron in July 1872, who continued to act as vice consul in Yokohama till October 1878. T'Kint de Roodenbeek left Japan for Belgium at the end of 1867 and became envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary for China and Japan in May 1869. He took up his post in Japan in November 1870 but left again in September 1871. During his mandate, he mainly stayed in Yokohama, though he performed his official duties in Tokyo. From 1869 on, Belgium also had a consulate in Tokyo, headed by Louis Strauss, a businessman from Antwerp. This consulate closed in 1873.
On 25 June 1873, Charles de Groote was appointed Minister Resident for Japan. Groote was director of the accountancy department of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He arrived in Yokohama in November 1873. After a few months in Tokyo, he established the Belgian legation on the Bluff in the Yokohama Foreign Settlement by mid-March 1874. Charles de Groote left for Belgium in March 1878 but returned to Yokohama as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary in December 1879. While in Belgium, he negotiated the appointment of Maurice Verhaeghe de Naeyer from Ghent as the new Belgian consul. Verhaeghe de Naeyer took up his post in Yokohama in October 1878 but was found dead in his residence on the Bluff on 27 October 1879. According to the Japanese press, he committed suicide, which was disputed by some of the press in his hometown of Ghent. Again, de Groote established the Belgian legation on the Bluff in Yokohama. In January 1880, Gustave Scribe from Ghent arrived as the new Belgian consul in Yokohama. He established a consulate on the Bluff, not far from the Belgian legation. In May 1883, he became the subject of a judicial complaint from some Japanese businessmen in the so-called Pouleur case. He left Japan in January 1884, after he was appointed Consul General in Batavia, Dutch East Indies.
The relationship of Charles de Groote with the Japanese authorities turned sour in 1881 due to the so-called Hota case. At the request of the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Groote left Japan in September 1881. It took till February 1882 before matters were resolved, resulting in Groote returning to Yokohama in May 1882. His tenure would end on 16 September 1884, when he suddenly died in his residence on the Bluff.
The new Belgian envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary for Japan was Georges Neyt, who arrived in Yokohama in February 1885. After first having established himself on the Bund in the Yokohama Foreign Settlement, he finally brought the Belgian legation to Bluff no. 118 in Yokohama, where it would stay till November 1893. Neyt left Japan by mid-July 1891. For over two years, he left the legation in the hands of the secretary, Paul de Groote, son of former minister Charles de Groote.
From the Sino-Japanese War to World War II
The new minister resident of the King of the Belgians to Japan, Baron , arrived in Yokohama in October 1893. He moved the Belgian legation to Tokyo in November of that same year. In 1894, d’Anethan was promoted to the rank of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. By 1904, he was dean of the diplomatic corps in Tokyo, till his death in Tokyo on July 25, 1910. His grave is located in the Zoshigaya Cemetery in Tokyo.
Albert d’Anethan served for 17 years in Japan, with the exception of home leaves from March 1897 till December 1897, from December 1901 till November 1902, from August 1906 till March 1907, and from March 1909 till January 1910. His mandate in Tokyo coincided with the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).