This lavishly funded PR program more than triples the strategic communications budget over last year’s ¥20 billion, essentially an admission that Japan has been losing the international war of words — and thus global support for its positions — during Abe’s tenure. Given that Seoul and Beijing have been playing hardball in getting their sides of the story out, Tokyo is responding in kind.

A push by Japan to correct perceived bias in accounts of the country's wartime past is creating a row that risks muddling the positive message in a mammoth public relations campaign to win friends abroad.