Japan’s ODA: Its Impacts on China’s Industrialization and Sino—Japanese Relations

Abstract

Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) policy can be regarded as one of the main pillars of Japan’s foreign policy in the post-Second World War era. Contrary to the frequent criticism that Japan’s ODA was primarily motivated by economic interests (Ensign, 1992; Arase, 1995), a remarkable change both in motives and structure has occurred since its official beginning in 1954 (Inada, 1989, 1993; Yasutomo, 1986). Japanese ODA in the 1960s was marked by postwar reparations, and in these early programme stages, economic assistance was linked to the expansion of Japan’s exports through tied aid. At first almost all ODA consisted of assistance loans (so-called ‘yen loansȉ) and focused almost exclusively on the Asian region. Similarly, after the first oil shock in 1973, the securing of steady supplies of energy and other resources became a major motive of its aid policy as well.KeywordsForeign Direct InvestmentLiberal Democratic PartyAsian Development BankOfficial Development AssistanceJapan International Cooperation AgencyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.