China Perspectives 47 | May-june 2003 Varia Japan’s Changing ODA Policy Towards China Masayuki Masuda Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/358 DOI : 10.4000/chinaperspectives.358 ISSN : 1996-4617 Éditeur Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Édition imprimée Date de publication : 1 juin 2003 ISSN : 2070-3449 Référence électronique Masayuki Masuda, « Japan’s Changing ODA Policy Towards China », China Perspectives [En ligne], 47 | May-june 2003, mis en ligne le 10 novembre 2006, consulté le 28 octobre 2019. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/358 ; DOI : 10.4000/chinaperspectives.358 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 28 octobre 2019. © All rights reserved Japan’s Changing ODA Policy Towards China 1 Japan’s Changing ODA Policy Towards China Masayuki Masuda NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR This article benefited from the constructive criticisms of Dr. Peter Van Ness, the Contemporary China Center at the Australian National University, Dr. Isabelle Thireau, Centre d’Etudes sur la Chine Moderne et Contemporaine and Mr. Kinichi Komano, Japan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan. The author thanks Representative Yasuhisa Shiozaki for his co-operation with the interview. 1 Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) towards China has come to a crossroads at the start of the new millennium. It was more than twenty years ago, at the end of 1978, that the then prime minister Ohira said the government of Japan would offer ODA to China.1 By the tax year of 1999 Japan had provided China with loans of 2,453.5 billion Japanese yen (US$21.52 billion) and grant aid of 118.5 billion yen (US$1.04 billion), together with technical co-operation of 116.3 billion yen (US$1.02 billion). Japan’s ODA to China as a whole, mainly though yen loans, contributed to the alleviation of an infrastructure bottleneck in China’s coastal regions and a stabilisation of China’s micro economy. According to Japan’s Economic Co-operation Programme for China published in October 2001, Japan’s ODA policy to China has been based on the following idea: “In order to maintain and strengthen the security and prosperity of Japan, the maintenance of a peaceful environment is essential as, indeed above all, are the stability and prosperity of the East Asia region in which Japan is located. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to create an environment of co-operation in which no country in the region is isolated. It is desirable from Japan’s perspective to have a more open and more stable society in China that is willing and able to fulfil its responsibilities as a member of the international community ”2. 2 That is, Japanese diplomacy has a concrete tool, which other western countries do not have, of its policy of engagement with China. In other words, ODA has been a vital China Perspectives, 47 | May-june 2003 Japan’s Changing ODA Policy Towards China 2 element of Japan’s China policy. On the one hand Japan has tried to establish a solid foundation of economic interdependence between Japan and China through ODA, mainly invested in China’s construction of its economic infrastructure, which would be expected to contribute towards China becoming a “responsible power” in the international community. On the other hand, especially after the end of the Cold War, Japan has come to understand ODA as a form of sanctions3. Japan has twice suspended ODA to China: in 1989 following the Tiananmen incident; and in 1995, in response to China’s decision to continue nuclear testing. However in both cases, the suspensions were only symbolic as they had little material impact on the Chinese economy. From both of these perspectives, it seems sensible that Japan preserve ODA to China as a diplomatic tool of its policy of engagement policy. 3 Yet, under the severe economic and fiscal circumstances that Japan has been experiencing for more than ten years now, together with changes such as China’s increasing economic and military power and emerging presence as a competitor, there is an increasing scepticism among the Japanese public of ODA to China from a number of points of view. One such factor leading to an accelerating trend among the public to reconsider the ODA policy to China is Japanese frustration towards Chinese intelligence-gathering ships and naval vessels, which became very active around Japanese territorial waters at the end of 1990s. A Chinese naval vessel appeared there for the first time in May 1999, when a Haibing-723 passed through the Tsushima and Tsugaru Straits, and advanced into the Pacific Ocean. Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japanese leading newspapers, criticised Japan’s ODA policy towards China in its editorial on October 14th 2000: “If China becomes a major military power and a serious threat to Japan due to Japanese economic co-operation that eventually enables China to increase its military spending every year, the meaning of Japan’s ODA to China will surely come into question. … Behind China’s maritime activities lies Peking’s maritime strategy, which sees sea waters as a stage for China’s political, economic and military struggle to secure its interests and resources. Unless China changes that strategy, its maritime activities in waters surrounding Japan may continue. We want China to clearly explain this point to dispel concern”4. 4 Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has more recently understood that there is “a need to listen to public opinion” and decided on May 11th 2000, that the ministry would set up the Advisory Group on Japan’s Economic Co-operation to China in the Twenty-First Century (Advisory Group) as a private advisory body to the director-general of the Economic Co- operation Bureau of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a process of development of the Country Assistance Programme to China supposedly to be concluded by the end of March 2001 based on “a great concern and critical opinion among Japanese people”5. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) also started to review Japan’s policy on ODA to China in September 2000 at the Small Committee on Evaluation of Economic Co- operation (Small Committee) and wrote the Generalisation and Guidelines of Economic Aid to and Co-operation with China (Guidelines) at the end of 2000. 5 The purpose of this paper is to clarify the policy-making process for Japan’s policy on ODA to China. Relations between Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Liberal Democratic Party are central to understanding Japan’s present stance, and to posit a number of the issues which Japan will be faced with in the near future. Fragile support for Japan’s ODA to China China Perspectives, 47 | May-june 2003 Japan’s Changing ODA Policy Towards China 3 6 The country assistance programmes are regarded as one of the government’s efforts to enhance the efficiency and transparency of ODA based on Japan's Medium-Term Policy on Official Development Assistance. Taking account of the political, economic and social situations in recipient countries, they outline Japan’s assistance plans for an approximate five-year period, incorporating both the plans and the issues that must be tackled in the development process. The Country Assistance Programme to China was supposedly to be written by the end of March 2001. Although the Programme was not drafted and announced by the end of March, the course of the programme had become obvious before then6. 7 The Second Study Group on Country Assistance to China set up at Japan International Co- operation Agency (JICA) in August 1997 produced a final report in February 1999. The report pointed out that the ODA to China should prioritise the elimination of poverty, of differentials among regions and environmental protection. It concluded also that the ODA should be extended mainly to inland China7. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made it clear in the Annual Report of the fiscal year of 1999, which reported to the Cabinet that the government would attach greater importance to projects of environment, agriculture and inland China8. The ministry did not have to set up the advisory body because the course of the Country Assistance Programme to China had already been made public before it decided to set up the Advisory Group. In response to mounting domestic criticism of the ODA to China recently, the ministry felt it necessary to take measures to develop a new assistance programme to China. “Harsh views” and criticisms of ODA to China 8 Japan’s white paper on its ODA policy, published at the end of March 2001, admitted for the first time that there were “harsh views about (overseas) assistance to China” among the Japanese public, pointing out the need to “reconsider how the assistance should be given”9. The “harsh views” were caused mainly by a cooling of public feelings towards China. A poll reported in 1996 and 1997 by Japan's prime minister's office showed that the percentage of the Japanese who did not have feelings of friendship towards China exceeded the percentage of those who did10, while another poll in 2000 showed that a record 31% of the public thought Japan could be drawn into a war, up 10% from a 1997 poll, because of the delicate situation in the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait11. Although his visit to Japan in 1998 expected to ease Japanese pessimistic views of China, China’s President Jiang Zemin repeated condemnations of Japan over the wartime apology issue, along with ritualistic warnings of revived Japanese militarism, which did nothing to improve these views. 9 Partly in response to these adverse trends, “harsh views” about Japan’s ODA to China have been on the rise since the end of the 1990s.