Given the absence of any publications in English on the relationship between Australian quarantine history and East Asian public health and quarantine, Professor Kohei Wakimura’s recent article, “Quarantine, international relations and East Asia: The late 19th century and the inter-war period,” published in Taipei, Taiwan in 2011, importantly fills the gap in this aspect of quarantine studies and establishes the ground for a hermeneutic Annährung between Australia and, in this particular case, Japan. For example, given the frequency of Japanese steamship arrivals at the North Head Quarantine Station between the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, carrying mostly Chinese passengers and cargo from Hong Kong, the maritime connection between Australia and Japan from the perspective of quarantine is an unexplored area of research that invites investment and development.