Christian Polak

Christian Philippe Polak (born August 1950) is a French businessman and author who has published several books on 19th-century Franco-Japanese relations; one Le Monde book review called him "the best specialist on this question".

Career Born in Nogaro, Polak graduated from the Department of Japanese studies at INALCO, Paris, in 1971. The same year, he entered Waseda University's Institute of Language and Education as a foreign exchange student. and in 1980 completed his doctorate in law, writing his doctoral thesis on diplomatic relations between France and Japan from 1914 to 1925.

After completing his doctoral studies, Polak attempted to obtain a position at a Japanese university, but, according to one source, the then-Japanese government "denied such a possibility to foreigners" despite various demonstrations and petitions. Polak abandoned his academic ambitions, and in 1981 founded in Tokyo the Société d’Etudes et de Recherches Industrielles et Commerciales (K.K. SERIC), providing advice and support to foreign businesses in areas of metallurgy, aeronautics, automobiles, and the environment. In 1990, Polak founded SERIC S.A., a Paris-based consulting company specializing in Franco-Japanese partnerships.

Polak has continued academic and research activities in parallel to his business career. He has been a visiting research fellow at Hitotsubashi University, a law lecturer at Chuo University's Law Department, and a researcher at the Maison Franco-Japonaise.

Polak is also President of the Franco-Japanese Association of Kanagawa, and was nominated by the French government as "consultant for the foreign trade of France" in 2002. He received the Medal of the Ordre national du Mérite (Chevalier class on 29 September 1989, and Officer class on 30 April 2002).

Books Polak wrote extensively on the French military missions to Japan (shown, the first such mission (1867–1868)).

Writing in the foreword to Polak's book, Hiroshi Ueki, former director of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, called Polak "a recognized historian of Franco-Japanese relations as well as an accomplished businessman." Polak has written several books on the interaction between France and Japan from the Bakumatsu period around 1858, when both countries opened diplomatic relations. The art book Soie et Lumieres (2001) described the interaction between Japan's silk trade and France's exports of technology, and Sabre et Pinceau (2005) the military and artistic relations of the two countries.

quotation|"Lavishly illustrated with reproductions of woodblock prints, old photographs, and previously unpublished documents of the period, [Soie et Lumieres] covers a little-known subject: the role of France in the modernization of Japan since the beginning of the 19th century .... The best specialist on this question, Christian Polak knows how to revive a forgotten epoch.|Philippe Pons, le Monde an inspiration for the movie The Last Samurai.

Polak has written on artists who played a role in Franco-Japanese relations, such as in his book on painter Paul Jacoulet. Tai Kawabata, a Japan Times staff writer, calls him a Jacoulet expert.

According to the Monthly Letter of the French Chamber of Commerce in Japan:

Publications