PEOPLE

The response was initially very harsh.

Kato: Was it 2009 when I first met you? It was when you were appointed Director-General of the Security Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Hayashida: I remember we had lunch together at the International House of Japan in Roppongi because Mr. Satoshi Iwamura, the Administrative Vice-Minister at the time, had someone he wanted to introduce to me. We had a very friendly lunch together there, and I only heard that he was working on the 'Sites of Modern Cultural and Industrial Heritage in Kyushu and Yamaguchi' (later renamed 'Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution').

Kato: Looking back, it was truly a fateful encounter that ultimately determined the outcome and there were many phases.

Hayashida: Yes, it was. After that, you visited the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and that was the second time we met?

Kato: Yes. I visited there with Mr. Pearson, who was the President of ICOMOS at the time. I explained to you about our concrete plans for the World Heritage Site registration, and you gave me a very stern response. It gave me the impression that you frowned upon ICOMOS.

Hayashida: That is a misunderstanding. In fact, at the time, there was a plan in progress to bury a bit of the old harbour in order to build a road through Tomonoura, but the project had run into a deadlock due to opposition from ICOMOS. That is why when I just heard of ICOMOS, I immediately associated it with the idea that it would not be easy to get things moving. I had no particular feelings about ICOMOS itself. In fact, regardless of ICOMOS, the road to World Heritage listing was a long and difficult one, wasn't it?

Kato: The first problem was that the Agency for Cultural Affairs, which has jurisdiction over World Heritage registration, denied it. From the beginning, I had thought that the operating assets of the late Meiji period - the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, the Yawata Steel Works and the Port of Miike - were indispensable, and I had announced a proposal that the component assets of Kyushu and Yamaguchi should be nominated together as a World Heritage Site. In Japan, it was customary to make a single nomination, for example, for the Kinkakuji Temple, but we knew that there were examples of serial nominations in the world, so we took the view that it was possible. However, the Agency for Cultural Affairs was very conservative about something that had no precedent in Japan.

Hayashida: Moreover, they want to include operational assets, including the Port of Miike, in the component assets, which may have been perceived as too far-fetched an idea. Even the owner cannot tamper with a single nail without permission when it becomes a national cultural asset. Everyone thought that even operating assets would be frozen without exception, you know.

Kato: I knew it would be difficult to gain understanding, so I was looking for a way forward and learning that the legal framework of port law could be applied to preserve them. In the world, there is a system called the Strategic Framework, which involves all ministries, for example, urban planning, and makes it possible to register operational assets on the World Heritage List. When we told the Agency for Cultural Affairs this and showed them concrete examples from around the world where properties are preserved under various legal systems other than the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, they were furiously opposed. Initially, this was not on the list of Cabinet decisions to be implemented by the Government.

Then, when we went to the Kyushu Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to explain the situation, Director-General Hiroshi Okamoto was also concerned that “it would be a problem if an active important port, which is a key player in the local economy, became a cultural asset and could no longer be used.” I later confirmed this with the then Governor of Fukuoka Prefecture, Wataru Aso, who is the port administrator of the Port of Miike, but he told me that he wanted the “port to be available for use rather than a World Heritage Site.” The asset-owning companies, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corporation, also responded in unison: “The World Heritage Site is an honour, but we don't want it to interfere with our production activities.” I remember being struck with a sense of intense frustration that if nothing was done, the project would be abandoned.