History and Objectives

The Tōhō Gakkai (The Institute of Eastern Culture) was founded in June 1947 by the leading members of the Tōhō Bunka Gakuin (Tokyo) and the Tōhō Bunka Kenkyūjo (Kyoto), prewar organizations supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the study of Chinese culture. The new institute, Tōhō Gakkai, though loosely under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry, is purely a non-governmental scholarly organization with the following aims:
1. To promote Asian studies in Japan;
2. To contribute to the cultural development of Asian countries through scholarship;
3. To encourage cooperation and communication among the scholars of various countries and to thereby render service to cultural interchange among nations.
The president of the Institute at the time of its inauguration was Dr. Haneda Tōru and the chairman of the board of directors was Dr. Uno Tetsuto.


Successive Presidents:
1. HANEDA Toru (1947.6-55.4), 2. UNO Tetsuto (1965.5-73.7), 3. ISHIDA Mikinosuke (1973.7-74.5),
4. YOSHIKAWA Kojiro (1975.7-80.4), 5. KAIZUKA Shigeki (1981.9-87.2), 6. YAMAMOTO Tatsuro (1987.9-93.9),
7. KANDA Nobuo (1993.9-99.9), 8. TAKASAKI Jikido (1999.9-2005.9), 9. IKEDA On (2005.9-09.9),
10. YOSHIKAWA Tadao (2009.9- ).

Successive Board Chairmen:
1. UNO Tetsuto (1947.6-65.5), 2. YOSHIKAWA Kojiro (1965.5-75.7), 3. YAMAMOTO Tatsuto (1975.7-85.7),
4. MORI Masao (1985.7-91.9), 5. TAKASAKI Jikido (1991.9-97.9), 6. HATTORI Masaaki (1997.9-2003.9),
7. TOGAWA Yoshio (2003.9-09.9), 8. KOZEN Hiroshi (2009.9- ).

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