Japan's Ascendancy as a Foreign-Aid Power: Asian Perspectives

Abstract

Since 1978 Japan has been the leading source of bilateral official development assistance (ODA) to Asia. However, it is only during the last few years, as Japan rose to become in 1989 the world's leading aid donor, that serious attention to the international political implications of Japan's ODA role has drawn attention. Japan's global ODA ascendance in the mid-1980s has occurred alongside two important parallel developments: a dramatic growth in the volume of private capital flows from Japan to Asia, and the endaka phenomenon-the rapid appreciation of the yen. Taken together, these developments in Japan's program of keizai kyoryoku (economic cooperation) have encouraged considerable speculation about what the shifting balance of power in the global economy means. For example, in 1988 senior officials of the Japanese government began talking openly about how Japan could use the tools of economic cooperation more aggressively to integrate the Asian economies.1 In February 1989 Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan of Thailand announced: The World Economic War is over. Japan has won.2 Concerns about hegemonic intentions on the part of foreign aid donors and powerful trading partners are not new or unusual anywhere in the developing world. Asia is no exception. What is an exception, however, is the special concerns that surround assessments of Japan. Tokyo is aware of these concerns, and consequently, while there is evidence that some in