A. R. RODIN

Postgraduate student of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Keywords: Japan, Africa, foreign policy, ODA, TIKAD

One of the conceptual foundations of Japan's policy towards African countries is economic assistance and the application in African conditions of the experience of modernization of East Asian countries, primarily Japan itself, as well as countries to which it provided economic assistance in the form of loans and by attracting investment from Japanese companies.

As Japanese researcher Kazue Demachi notes, " Historically, Japan's aid to foreign countries has always been closely linked to the economic activities of the Japanese. Since political initiative was notoriously weak, Japanese diplomacy was largely shaped by the business community. " ¹

At the same time, it should be noted that the strategies of Japanese capital in Asia and Africa are quite significantly different, moreover, in economic terms, African countries are still of relatively little interest to Japan. For example, in 2008, imports of goods from Africa accounted for only 2.7% of Japan's total imports, while exports to Africa accounted for 1.7% of total exports. The same indicators for 2014 are slightly different, and even in a smaller direction,

making up 2.4% and 1.6%, respectively ².

However, according to statements by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in summer 2013, investment, loans and official development assistance (ODA) will increase significantly over the next five years.³ At the same time, Africa has long been second only to Asian countries in terms of ODA provided by Japan, surpassing other regions that are in some respects more priority for Japan in terms of economic interests.

In recent years, there is a view among researchers that, unlike the development assistance strategies used by the Japanese in East Asian countries, Japan's relevant activities on the African continent are shaped to a greater extent by political and strategic interests. An example is the following statement by K. Damati: "In East Asia, Japan's economic interests clearly dominated over the political ones, while the incentive for the implementation of Japanese initiatives in the field of African development was not economic, but political motives. The lack of strong economic ties with Africa means that Japanese diplomacy towards Africa was based on political interests. " ⁴

Similar considerations are expressed by a number of authors about the well-established view of the goals and priorities of Japan's foreign policy in African countries in general. Without exaggeration, it is generally accepted among researchers that the main goal of Japanese diplomacy is to create a base for gaining access to the sources of natural resources that Japan urgently needs (the phrase resource diplomacy, i.e. "resource diplomacy", is quite often used in the English-language literature in this regard).

At the same time, some evidence suggests that this view is not entirely correct for Africa. As Portuguese researcher Pedro A. Raposo notes: "A historical comparison of the sectoral distribution of Japanese foreign direct investment in Africa shows that its focus has shifted significantly over the past three decades. Transport remained the predominant sector from 1971 to 2001. However, the share of investment in mining, which accounted for more than 30% in the 1970s, has fallen to just 1%, which suggests that resource diplomacy is no longer the main goal of Japanese firms in Africa. " ⁵

From this, it can be concluded that in recent years, both the general motives of the Japanese government for establishing ties with African countries and the priorities of private Japanese capital have changed somewhat. To a certain extent, the foreign policy concept of "separating politics from economics", which was characteristic of post-war Japan, was revised, and the development of political relations with African countries received a new impetus.

The basis of Japan's new position was the desire to play a significant role in the political arena, consistent with its economic influence. Its investments, ODA and other methods of economic influence can be considered as elements of the so-called "soft power", as Japanese politicians call this model of foreign policy activity.

MILESTONES OF JAPANESE ODA

Japan, which was a major recipient of international aid in the 1950s, during the period of post-war reforms and economic recovery, and by the early 1970s had already become a major donor, is known to have focused mainly on aid to Asian countries. Its assistance to the East Asian states in the 60s-70s of the XX century is considered by many researchers to be one of the reasons for their rapid economic recovery.⁶

Africa was not one of the priorities of Japanese ODA until the mid-1970s, when the oil crisis, which raised Japan's interest in African countries as potential sources of energy, decided to start providing some assistance to African States as well. A number of authors believe that this was done under some pressure from the United States in order to contain the spread of socialism in Africa.⁷ Nevertheless, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Africa remained on the periphery of Japan's political and economic attention.

In 1989, Japan became the world's largest donor of economic aid, surpassing the United States, and maintained this position for the next 10 years. Its rise to the first place among donor countries occurred against the background of a general decline in the volume of economic assistance provided by developed countries, which is usually associated with the end of the cold war and the end of the use of international aid as a tool of bipolar competition. It was also during this period that Japan became a major donor in Africa, revising its ODA allocation policy.

According to the Director General of the Economic Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, " since 1977, Japan has increased its assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by 10 times. In 1987, Japan became the largest donor of direct economic aid (i.e., without the mediation of international organizations. - author's note) for four African countries-Kenya, Zambia, Malawi and Nigeria. Some may not be aware of this, but Japan is also the second non-African country in terms of funding from the African Development Bank and the first in terms of funding from the African Development Fund. " ⁸

Since 1991, Japanese diplomacy towards African countries has been noticeably intensified. Then, for the first time, the Japanese delegation at the UN General Assembly made a public statement about plans to hold a forum on African development issues, later called TIKAD, but this was far from the only evidence of this trend.

Tokyo's next step towards revitalizing its activities in Africa was the adoption of the ODA ^Decree in 1992.9. This document stated that Japan, responding to the needs of the new era and the recommendations of the international community, intends to increase the volume of aid to African countries and their share in proportion to Asian countries among the recipients of its financial assistance. The decree also stressed the need to integrate economic assistance into the overall development strategy and use it to support democratization, respect for human rights and reduce tensions in the region. In this regard, following the adoption of the decree, all but humanitarian assistance was suspended to a number of African countries, such as the Sudan (from 1993 to 2003)^.10 Special attention was paid to the inadmissibility of using ODA for military and related purposes and to encouraging recipient countries to reduce unproductive military expenditures and redistribute them to other countries. socially important industries, such as healthcare and education.

In 1993, the first TICAD conference was held, which became an important milestone in Japan-Africa relations and had a significant impact on Japan's development assistance activities. Since then, it has been held every 5 years, increasing in scale, the number of participating States, and the significance of their planned and ongoing initiatives. The fact that the conference was organized during this period suggests that, despite the insignificance of economic ties with Africa, Japanese politicians at that time regarded the African direction as promising.

At the same time, the volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Japan to Africa in the 90 - ies of XX century. All of them remained at a relatively low level, and most of them were made up of investments in South Africa. According to the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), in some years the statistics of Japanese investment in Africa showed negative values, which means an outflow of capital. Since 1997, Japan's investment in Africa has shown some positive dynamics, amounting to $355 million in 1998, but by 2000 the figures again showed a significant outflow of funds, despite the increase in total Japanese FDI during ^this period11.

The last years of the twentieth century can be considered the beginning of the next stage in Japanese ODA. Its volumes gradually declined during this period, and by 2001 they had decreased by about a quarter compared to 1999 (to $7.5 billion versus $10.5 billion, respectively) due to the economic recession, as a result of which it lost the position of the leader among donor countries to the United States. At the same time, the share of African countries among recipients of Japanese ODA increased slightly, reaching 10.1% in 2000 ($969 million)¹² and 11.4% ($850 million) in 2001, compared to 9.5% in 1999 (about $1 billion).¹³. In the next two years, their share fell below ⁹%, and in absolute terms, they declined even more due to the overall decline in Japan's ODA (to $585 million in 2002.14 and $530 million in 2002.14). in 2003, ¹⁵).

In 2003, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a new decree on official development assistance, reflecting new trends in Japan's relations with developing countries. This was reflected, among other things, in the cancellation of debts to several countries on the list of least developed countries burdened with external debt, most of which are located in Africa, ¹⁶ and the announcement of planned changes in its overall approach to ODA, namely, an increase in the share of grant aid compared to loans, the share of African countries as destinations for Japanese ODA and about increasing the degree of integration of aid into foreign policy in general and, in particular, in the field of peacekeeping initiatives, as well as the desire to increase the overall volume of economic assistance. This was, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry's diplomatic yearbook, another turning point not only in its ODA policy, but also in its relations with developing countries in general. ¹⁷

The new decree was a continuation of the previous policy. It contained such general guidelines as attention to issues of security, peace, stability, disarmament and conflict resolution, and other topics that have been traditional in recent years for Japanese diplomacy in relation to African countries. There were also new elements in it, namely: a focus on financial transparency, decentralizing cash flows, cooperation with non-governmental and international organizations and expanding the scope of their activities. Also in 2003, the Japanese Government officially announced its support for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) program launched by the African Union.

Another important point was the emphasis on attention to environmental pollution and climate change, which later became an important part of international assistance to Japan and the activities of TIKAD. The experience of Japan, the most active country in the field of environmental initiatives, is estimated to have a significant impact on the situation in developing countries suffering from air and water pollution.¹⁸

By 2004, Japan's ODA stopped falling and even showed a positive trend (an increase of 0.3%, to about $9 billion) and signs of a review of aid allocation policies. Asia's share declined by more than 20% year-on-year and accounted for about 42% of all bilateral aid to Japan, partly due to the fact that most Japanese ODA to Asia was provided in the form of loans, and loan repayments are deducted from the amount of aid provided. At the same time, Africa's share increased by almost a quarter, reaching 11% and an absolute value of approximately $650 million.¹⁹ In 2005, the Africa and Asia Forum was held, at which the Government of Japan announced plans to double its ODA before the next TICAD conference, i.e. before 2008, and that Africa's share of Japanese aid would continue to increase, while remaining more grant-based than loan-based ²⁰.

The goal was completed

to achieve this goal, and in 2008, during TIKAD IV, it was announced that Japanese ODA to Africa would once again double over the next five years, from an average annual level of $0.9 billion (for the last 5 years from 2003 to 2007). up to an annual volume of $1.8 billion. (excluding debt write-offs) achieved by 2011. In addition, it was planned to increase the volume of ODA loans to $^{4 billion by 2013.21}

Japanese investment in Africa increased significantly in the 2000s, peaking in 2007-2008 at over $1 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively. However, this was followed by a sharp decline to negative values, i.e. capital outflows from the continent, coinciding with the same sharp overall decline in Japanese investment volumes caused by economic stagnation. The marked improvement in 2011 did not last long, including due to the large-scale natural disaster that caused the accident at the nuclear power plant and the subsequent economic crisis, as a result of which the indicators again went to minus ²² by 2013. In 2013, Japan's policy regarding the distribution of ODA showed an increase in the share of African countries as recipients. At the CHIKAD-V conference in June, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo announced plans to expand support for Africa's development to 3.2 trillion yen (about $27 billion) in funding over the next five years. at the average exchange rate of the first half of 2015), including 1.4 trillion (about $12 billion) in ODA, which is mostly grant-based for African States.²³ This means an increase in the annual volume of aid to the countries of the African continent to $2.5 billion. and about the same amount of expected private investment. Nevertheless, the share of African countries in Japan's ODA remains small compared to Asian countries, and Asian countries continue to lead the way in terms of their importance to Japan, both politically and economically.

In recent years, Japan's ODA has been significantly lower than the growing volume of international aid provided by the United States, Great Britain and Germany, but still exceeds the rest of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Among the organization's member States, Japan ranks 18th out of 28 in terms of the proportion of ODA to GDP at 0.23% (compared to 0.19% for the United States).²⁴. Its current position among donor countries cannot be described as leading, but its significant contribution to the development of African States and other recipients of international aid should not be underestimated, including because of its specific economic assistance features, such as its long-term orientation and its extensive experience in Asian development assistance. Japan at this stage.

IMPACT FOREIGN POLICY FACTORS ON JAPAN'S ODA

The main political factors influencing Japan's ODA to African countries, in addition to the internal realities and foreign policies of the African states themselves, are competition with China and other fast-growing industrial powers, the impact of the United Nations and the World Bank, and the influence of Western countries, including within the G7 (before Russia's suspension of membership in March 2014 - the G8) and the OECD.

Political influence on Japan from African countries in the twentieth century was mainly expressed in activities within the framework of international and regional organizations, i.e., first of all, the UN and the Organization of African Unity. Until the 1990s, one of the main issues in this area was Japan's economic cooperation with the apartheid regime of South Africa, which was condemned by the African public. Due to the lack of support from African states in 1978, Japan lost the election for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, losing to Bangladesh, which was a surprise for the government and probably had a significant impact on further shaping the course towards South Africa, but still did not lead to a complete rejection of economic cooperation with Pretoria. Under pressure from the international community and threats of sanctions, Japan limited its cooperation with South Africa only in the second half of the 1980s.

Since the fall of the racist regime in South Africa, the focus has shifted to economic issues, such as increasing Africa's share of Japanese ODA, canceling external debt, and increasing Japan-Africa trade and investment. Japanese diplomacy in Africa was also influenced by the establishment of the United Nations in 1991. The World Bank at the insistence of the African leaders of the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA), later renamed the Coalition for Dialogue in Africa (CoDA). It was established as a forum of the global South and the global North to unite efforts to address the most pressing development issues of the African continent and, according to some researchers, served as an impetus for Japan to organize the CHIKAD ²⁵ conference.

At the present stage, political and economic rivalry with China and other new players on the African continent, such as India, is an important factor that has a significant impact on Japan's policy towards developing countries, including African countries, and, in particular, on its international assistance. As Pedro A. Raposo points out, "Although China's presence in Africa dates back to the 1950s, Beijing's rivalry with Japan and Western donor countries and its attempts to promote its own development model, which emphasizes cooperation between China and Africa rather than unilateral aid, did not begin until after the 1990s." China is less concerned with the development and democratization of African countries and simply buys the political support of African leaders for economic cooperation. China... challenges the west-

The United States and Japan have developed new models of development in Africa, both in their bilateral relations with African States and through new international initiatives, including the China-Africa Cooperation Forum. Due to China's increased presence and security concerns in the supply of resources, Japan announced a doubling of ODA loans to African countries at TIKAD IV. " ²⁶

The aforementioned forum was established in 2000 and, according to a number of researchers, was a response to the organization of TICAD and learned a lot from its experience. Thus, the mutual influence of the foreign policy and economic activities of Japan and China in Africa in recent years has been and continues to be quite significant.

Similar summits and conferences were subsequently established by other global actors in international relations, which confirms the relevance of this format. In 2000, the first Africa - EU summit was held in Cairo, which was repeated in 2007 in Lisbon; in 2006, the first Africa-South America summit was organized, which has since existed on a triennial basis; in 2008, the first India-Africa Forum was held in New Delhi, which has been held since then every three years. Another initiative in this area was the summit of African leaders held in Washington in 2014, which was largely devoted to the development of Africa and the participation of Western partners in it.

JAPANESE ODA ESTIMATES

There is much discussion in the press and among researchers about the overall effectiveness of Japan's economic assistance to African countries in comparison with that of other developed countries. Japan's approach to ODA differs somewhat from the standard position of Western powers, including on the ratio of grant aid to loans, external debt cancellation, "related aid" and the importance of political conditions in selecting recipient countries.

In this regard, the indicator - the Commitment to Development Index (CDI), introduced in 2003 by the American magazine "Foreign Policy" together with the Global Development Center team of analysts, is interesting. It aims to provide an overall assessment of the diplomacy of 21 donor countries towards developing countries on their activities in six areas: aid, trade, investment, peacekeeping operations, environmental initiatives and migration-related issues. In each of the categories, activities are evaluated by a number from 0 to 9, and their arithmetic mean becomes the general indicator of the state. The highest index was the Netherlands (5.6), followed by Denmark (5.5) and Portugal (5.2). Japan was in last place with an indicator of 2.4. A separate indicator for assessing Japan's aid was also low, it was 1.2, being the penultimate in the list, which is completed by the United States with an indicator ^{of 0.8.27}

It should be added that if the international assistance of a particular state was measured in quantitative and qualitative terms, then the sphere of "trade" was understood as "openness to exports", and "investment" - as "policy measures to stimulate investment activity". In the years since the first CDI calculations were published, Japan's position in the list of developed countries for this index has hardly changed, despite the active government activity in the field of economic assistance to African states. The way the indicator is calculated has changed slightly over the past 10 years, with the technology performance assessment index added to the scheme, and one of the evaluation parameters - participation in peacekeeping - replaced with the more general phrase "security policy". The list of assessed developed countries was expanded to 27, with Japan in the penultimate place, followed by South Korea on ²⁸.

To a certain extent, the index did point out some of the weak points of Japan's foreign policy line towards developing countries, and probably influenced the process of forming this line. The Japanese government reacted to the publication of the lists by criticizing the index calculation system, which, according to representatives of the Japanese side, did not take into account many important aspects and areas of activity when calculating indicators.²⁹ A similar point of view was expressed by a number of researchers of international relations.

The results of calculating the indicators showed not only the difference between the activities of Japan and Western countries, but also the difference in their approaches to international aid to developing countries: in contrast, the Japanese government preferred the form of a loan to grant aid, stating that the need to pay the loan contributes to development to a greater extent than one-time financial injections. This leads to some differences in the positions of Japan and Western countries on the issue of writing off external debt to African countries. Japan has been quite active in the field of external debt reduction initiatives over the past decades, but until the early 2000s it preferred other methods of easing the situation of developing countries burdened with external debt, including targeted concessional loans, rather than writing them off. It is difficult to judge unambiguously the effectiveness of a particular strategy of assistance to the economic development of African countries, since much in these matters depends on the initial conditions and on the correct implementation of the tasks set.

Japan's commitment to increasing its assistance to African countries, as well as the important characteristics of its assistance, such as its long - term orientation and the creation of a base for continuous independent economic growth in African countries, as well as the active involvement of representatives of the private sector-both Japanese and African-will serve as the basis for further expanding the scope of cooperation between Africa and the region as a whole, and, in particular, with Japan.

¹ Cit. by: Demachi Kazue. Japanese Foreign Assistance to Africa: Aid and Trade // Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies. Working Paper Series N 58. Kyoto. 2009, p. 2.

² www.jetro.go.jp/en/reports/statistics/

³ www.mofa.go.jp/region/page6e_000075.html

⁴ Cit. by: Demachi Kazue. Op. cit., p. 11.

⁵ Cit. by: Pedro Amakasu Raposo. Evolution of Japan's Foreign Policy to Africa and the TICAD Process // Universidade Lusiada, Politica Internacional e Seguranca. Lisbon. 2009, N 2, p. 13 (134).

^{Molodyakov V. E., Molodyakova E. V., Markaryan S. B.} 6 History of Japan. XX century. Moscow, IV RAS, 2009, p. 391.

^{Pedro Amakasu Raposo.} 7 Op. cit., p. 16 (137).

⁸ Cit. no: Morikawa Jun. Japan and Africa: Big Business and Diplomacy, London, 1997, p. 1.

⁹ www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/pamphlet/future/odael.htm

¹⁰ www.mofa.go.jp/region/africa/sudan/data.html

¹¹ www.jetro.go.jp/en/reports/statistics/data/country1_e_13cy.xls

¹² Diplomatic Bluebook, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. 2002, p. 125 - www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/2002/chap2-3.pdf

¹³ Diplomatic Bluebook... 2003, p. 190 - www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/2003/chap3-d.pdf

¹⁴ Diplomatic Bluebook... 2004, p. 208 - www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/2004/chap3-d.pdf

¹⁵ Diplomatic Bluebook... 2005, p. 204 - www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/2005/ch3-d.pdf

^{Makoto Sato.} 16 Japanese Aid Diplomacy in Africa: An Historical Analysis // Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies. The International Studies Association of Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. 2005, p. 14 (80).

¹⁷ Diplomatic Bluebook... 2003...

^{Donnelly Elizabeth.} 18 Japan-Africa engagement and TICAD IV: can Japan lead the way on African development? // Africa Programme Paper, 08/01. Chatam House, London. 2008, p. 11.

¹⁹ Diplomatic Bluebook, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. 2006, p. 195 - www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/2006/13.pdf

²⁰ www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/meet0504/speech.html

²¹ www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/pamphlet/pdfs/ticad_20_en.pdf

²² www.jetro.go.jp/en/reports/statistics/data/countryl_e_13cy.xls

²³ Annual report by Japan International Cooperation Agency. 2014,p. 52 - www.jica.go.jp/english/publickations/reports/annual/2014/c8h0vm000090s8nn-att/2014_all.p df

²⁴ Ibid., p. 14.

^{Pedro Amakasu Raposo.} 25 Japan's Foreign Aid Policy and the Influence of External Factors: Implications for the TICAD Security and Political Role // Portuguese Journal for International Affairs, Lisboa. 2012, N 6, p. 8 (21).

²⁶ Cit. by: Pedro Amakasu Raposo. Op. cit., p. 8 (21).

^{Makoto Sato.} 27 Op. cit., p. 2 (68).

²⁸ www.cgdev.org/doc/CDI%202012/CDI%20Postcard_2012.pdf

²⁹ www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/other/index0609.html

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