Changing Dynamics of Japan´s Interaction with Southeast Asia

Abstract

Although Japan's interaction with Southeast Asia has progressively deepened since the end of World War II, the movement towards closer core-periphery integration accelerated sharply during the 1980s. It could be argued, on the basis of the collapse of the Cold War, the attenuation of the Cambodian conflict, and the dramatic increase in Japan's role as an investor, aid giver and trading partner, that Japan has emerged as the single most important external power to most Southeast Asian nations. It remains to be seen whether, and for how long, the trends that have shaped Japan's current interaction with Southeast Asia will continue. What is clear is that whatever Japan does from this point onwards will have enormous impact on the well-being of Southeast Asian countries and on the shape of intraregional and extraregional relationships. The history of Japan's involvement in Southeast Asia has been marred by sharply different notions of partnership. The region has long held an attraction for a mod ernizing island nation whose lack of natural resources, dependence on trade and assertive, commercially oriented nationalism strikingly paralleled that of two of the principal Western colonial powers in Southeast Asia ? Britain and the Netherlands. Despite Tokyo's efforts to promote concepts of mutual co-operation based on Asian solidarity, Japan's status as a developed industrial society has generally overshadowed any pan-Asian considerations. Moreover, long centuries of isolation appear to have reinforced Japanese concepts of their own uniqueness, and hence made them prone to chauvinism. Enduring Japanese interests relating to Southeast Asia derive from concerns about economic well-being and security from invasion. In the post-war era, the latter has generally been provided by the U.S. nuclear umbrella and the U.S. Seventh Fleet, leaving Japan to concentrate on promoting its economic well-being within the context of a U.S.-led Asia-Pacific security order and an open trading regime. In Southeast Asia, attention to this interest has taken the form of concerns about regional stability, the security of strategic trade routes, and access to the region's raw materials and markets. More recently, the region has emerged as a major manufacturing base for Japanese industry and, hence, a critical element in the maintenance of Japan's global competitiveness.