[3] The earliest Japanese contact with the Marshall Islands dates back to 1884, when a group of pearl divers were blown off course to Lae Atoll during their return voyage from Australia.

The envoys reportedly explored some of the nearby atolls before paying a visit to Labon Kabua, one of the principal chief in the Marshall Islands.

A report published by a German explorer, Hambruch in 1915 mentioned that three Japanese fishermen in a junk were massacred by the Marshallese at Lae Atoll in 1910.

[8] In the early 1920s, a Japanese trader settled in Enewetak and made false claims that he had received permission from the government to develop coconut groves.

In the early 1930s, Marshallese reported a strong presence of Japanese and Korean labourers in Jaluit who were hired to build roads and shophouses.

Jaluit developed into a small town by 1939, and housed a population of several hundred Japanese settlers along with some two thousand Marshallese in the suburban areas.

[22] Japanese–Marshallese politicians generally held critical opinions on nuclear weapon tests carried out by the United States in Operation Crossroads.

At least one ethnologist, Greg Dvorak suggested that the shared Japanese and Marshallese experience of nuclear warfare shaped critical views held by Japanese–Marshallese politicians.

[11] From the 1990s onwards, Japanese–Marshallese politicians including James Matayoshi and Hiroshi Yamamura often led lobbies against the United States for monetary compensation of victims of radioactive fallout.

Although the association had limited patronage from the younger generation of Japanese–Marshallese, it played an important role in lobbying the government to forge closer cultural and economic ties with Japan.

[24] Japanese firms that were based on the Marshall Islands since the 1960s actively sought joint ventures with local companies from the 1980s onwards, mainly in the fishery sector.

Expatriates usually consisted of Okinawan fishermen based at Majuro, where Japanese companies have built smoking and canning facilities to facilitate the processing of tuna catches.

[31] The Marshallese ambassador to the United States, Banny de Brum cited in 2006 that some 6,000 individuals, or about 10% of all Marshall Islanders had some Japanese ancestry.

[38] Contrary to Japanese settlements in the other mandated islands, settlers consisted mainly of single men, and intermarriages with Marshallese women were much more frequent.