Abstract
The Imperial Japanese Government before WWII maintained its deliberate indifference to the claim repeated by Lieutenant Nobu Shirase for Japanese territorial right over Antarctica. Finding this inhabitable terrainno economic value at least for the short term, the prewar Japanese government focused on preventing other countries' exclusive dominion and retaining the nation's access to the future use of the continent. Such prewar political tradition was inherited by the postwar Japanese government under the new framework of San Francisco Peace Treaty. As the potential values of Antarctica grew along with the technological advancement of equipment and increasing possibility of the use of nuclear energy, it became more rational for Japan to secure the “open door” policy in which any country would not be excluded from Antarctica. Japan's policy towards the South Pole in this period implicitly contained a political realism as opposed to its expressed idealism and reflected the added influence of scientific and technological development, symbolized by nuclear energy, in the international dynamism.
