The article analyses educational cooperation between Uzbekistan and Japan as an independent political resource of the bilateral relationship. The research problem is that the high level of political dialogue is not matched by trade and economic indicators; this structural asymmetry is conceptualised as an “opportunity gap”. The methodological framework is analytic eclecticism, combining liberal-institutional and constructivist explanatory logics, with document analysis and process tracing as the research strategy.

The novelty of the study lies in proposing educational and human resource cooperation as a distinct analytical category-“human capital diplomacy”- differentiated from both soft power and official development assistance.

The analysis establishes that the institutional density of the educational channel exceeds that of the trade channel, and that human capital diplomacy performs three political functions: elite socialisation, the formation of a reputational resource, and institutional stabilisation. Since December 2025 the channel has been shifting from the logic of development assistance towards the logic of joint institutions.

Human capital diplomacy performs a compensatory function with respect to the opportunity gap; however, unless educational outcomes are linked to economic outcomes, the gap is mitigated rather than closed.

human capital diplomacy, opportunity gap, educational cooperation, soft power, official development assistance, analytic eclecticism, JICA, JDS programme, Uzbekistan-Japan relations.

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