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Japan's ‘Africa thrust’Scarlett Cornelissen aa Lecturer in the Department of Political Science , University of Stellenbosch ,Published online: 11 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Scarlett Cornelissen (1998) Japan's ‘Africa thrust’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 6:1, 7-20

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Japan's 'Africa Thrust'

Scarlett Cornelissen1

Foundations of Japan-African Relations

Japan's involvement in sub-Saharan Africa became more than cursory in thelatter half of the 1960s, when it initiated a rudimentary OfficialDevelopment Assistance (ODA)2 programme to the region. Prior to this, theofficial stance on relations with the African continent since the. late 19thCentury heralded it as a small export market for Japanese consumer,particularly textile, goods.3 Africa was still regarded as a dark and distantcontinent. This lack of familiarity with the region served to reinforce Japan'sbent towards Southeast Asia, which came to be the locus of ever-risingvolumes of trade, investment and aid from Japan. This did not preclude,however, the development of an economic policy towards sub-SaharanAfrica which focused on securing stable sources of mineral resources andexport outlets. Japan's ODA to the region constituted the prime mechanism.

Japan disbursed its first development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa in1966. This took the form of Yen loans, extended to Uganda, Kenya, Nigeriaand Tanzania. A subsequent disbursal was also made to Ghana.4 These

1 SCARLETT CORNELISSEN is a lecturer in the Department of PoliticalScience at the University of Stellenbosch.

2 Official Development Assistance is the official designation of theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD)Development Assistance Committee (DAC) — the body of internationaldonors. It comprises financial flows from the government of a developed,to that of a developing country, with the objective of promoting welfareand economic development. It is characterised by its concessionality. Aidhas the same basic purpose, but is extended at less concessionary terms,and comprises financial transactions between the public and private sectorsof states.

3 Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yearbook, 1961. Cited in Nester WR,Japan and the Third World: Patterns, Power, Prospects. London:Macmillan, 1992.

4 Morikawa J, Japan and Africa: Big Business and Diplomacy. London: Hurst& Co.. 1997.

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early disbursals were made in response to the strict import restrictions onJapanese goods by these countries — countries with whom Japan had builtup sizeable trade surpluses at that time. As such, ODA from Japanconstituted a form of political quid pro quo, amounting in the first few yearsof the 1970s to less than two percent of Japan's total ODA. The year 1974marks however a first watershed in the volume of Japan's aid disbursementsto Africa. This year saw the Japanese foreign minister visiting Ghana,Nigeria, former Zaire and Tanzania, and announcing a doubling of Japan'sODA to Africa. This move on the part of Japan followed the OPEC oil crisisof 1973 and was part of the greater resource diplomacy which started toinform the foreign policy of Japan — heavily dependent on the import ofenergy sources — at the time. Consequently, whilst the countries ofSoutheast Asia still received the bulk of Japan's ODA, by the beginning ofthe 1980s the developing regions of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle Eastand Latin America each accounted for an average of 10% of total JapaneseODA disbursements.

Japan's ODA programme to sub-Saharan Africa however was placed underheavy censure. Critics charged that ODA was dispatched only to keycountries; those which were richly endowed with mineral resources, suchas former Zaire, Zambia, Niger and Zimbabwe, or who had geopoliticalimportance (such as Kenya and Tanzania), ties with whom provided Japanwith political influence in Africa and the United Nations. Criticism was alsomounting about Japan's rising trade surpluses with apartheid South Africa.5

From the ranks of other donor states, a more fundamental query was raisedregarding the nature of Japan's ODA programme, for in the first instance theharsh terms of its loans, and in the second, its seeming unwillingness toextend grant aid in volumes comparable to those of its fellow DACmembers. In essence, it was claimed, this provided evidence of a neo-mercantilist drive in Japan's aid to sub-Saharan Africa, with ODA utilisedonly to boost Japan's own exports. This, it was further asserted, contradictedany claim to humanitarianism on the part of Japan.

In response to this, the Japanese government since 1984 has been takingincremental steps both to increase and to improve the quality of its aid toAfrica. The year 1984 thus marks a second watershed in Japan's foreignpolicy towards Africa. In this year the Japanese foreign minister visitedZambia, Ethiopia and Egypt, using these visits to announce an increase in

5 For a review of Japan's political ties with prominent OAU states, seeAmpiah K, The Dynamics of Japan's Relations with Africa - South Africa,Tanzania and Nigeria. London: Routledge, 1997.

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Comelissen: Japan's 'Africa Thrust'

aid to the African region, to bring about a 'green revolution for Africa'. Thegovernment also aimed to give a human face to its ODA, announcingmeasures to provide a total of US$153 million in food and agricultural aidto the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.6 This was in line with the 'basichuman needs' approach to development enshrined by the World Bank atthe time.

From the mid-1980s the volume of ODA to sub-Saharan Africa, as a shareof Japan's total ODA, rose sharply. This was reflective of two features: thegrowth in Japan's overall ODA programme in this period, and a moredynamic Japanese stance towards Africa. Both of these, in turn, were relatedto a transformation in Japan's foreign policy, brought about by dramaticshifts in the international political economy. In 1985 the Japanese economysoared, when, in the aftermath of the Plaza Accord the Yen appreciatedrapidly against the US Dollar. This, coupled with rising current accountsurpluses, conferred upon Japan the leverage to effect increases in its ODAspending: in 1989 Japan became the biggest dispenser of bilateral ODA inthe world, a status which the country briefly lost in 1990, but retained forthe seven consecutive years between 1991-7. Economic capability aside, amore cardinal reason for this feat centred on the country's aspirations toassert a commensurate global political stature. Japan's emergence as top aiddonor serviced this ambition. Moreover, it served to appease the US, whichhad been putting Japan under increasing pressure to re-invest some of itseconomic surplus into the international economy, hence doing its part tocarry the international burden, to share the cost of internationalhegemony.7 For Japan, sub-Saharan Africa represented a useful recipientcandidate for its energised foreign policy. Relations between Japan and thesub-continent in the 1990s have consequently deepened — what one maycall a third 'African thrust' on the part of Japan.

6 Kotani T, 'Rising Sun over Africa?', Africa Report, November-December1985.

7 A 1991 publication edited by Shafiqul Islam provides some insight into the'burden-sharing' debate between Japan and the United States in the early1990s. See Islam S (ed.), Yen for Development: Japanese Foreign Aid andthe Politics of Burden-sharing. New York: Council on Foreign Relations,1991.

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Japan's Renewed Focus on Africa

Japanese aid in the 1990s

By the mid-1990s the Japanese aid machinery had become well settled insub-Saharan Africa: by 1995 Japan was disbursing aid to all of the 47 sub-Saharan African states, and it was the top donor for seven of thesecountries.8 Whilst the proportion of Japanese aid directed to the sub-continent still falls well below that channelled to the Asian region, itrepresents impressive volumes — US$1.33 billion in 1995.9

Japan's programme of economic co-operation in sub-Saharan Africa isofficially founded upon a triad of ODA, trade and investment. This is inkeeping with what the Japanese government terms a 'comprehensiveapproach to development', where concessional flows from the governmentare accompanied by trade and investment flows from the Japanese privatesector.10 The rationale behind this is that it pre-empts the development ofaid-dependence on the part of a recipient. ODA from Japan has threecomponents — grant aid and technical co-operation, both of which do notimpose repayment obligation on the recipient country, and loan assistance.The Japanese aid philosophy is such that the government attaches thegreatest significance to loan aid, which it believes is the most useful meansto effect development in a recipient country, as it imposes self-disciplineand instils a sense of self-help.11 The notions of 'self-help' and 'ownership'are central to the Japanese development philosophy. A counter-claim fromthe Japanese government against criticisms of its aid programme, is that itis precisely its focus on Yen loans for infrastructural development inSoutheast Asia that has led to the development of these countries. To thisextent the patterns of Japan's aid-giving in sub-Saharan Africa are instructive.

8 These were Kenya, Ghana, the Gambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzaniaand Zambia. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan's ODA, Annual Report,1996.

9 In 1996 Japan's bilateral ODA to sub-Saharan Africa had fallen toUS$1.067 billion, indicating the start of a secular decline in Japan's overallODA budget brought on by a slump in the Japanese economy.

10 Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan's Official Development Assistance:Annual Report, Tokyo, 1996, p.43.

11 Hanabusa M, 'A Japanese Perspective on Aid and Development', in IslamS, op cit., 1991.

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Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest recipient of Japan's total grant assistance,which amounted to US$2.4 billion in 1996. In the 11 years from 1985-95the main recipients of Japan's total bilateral ODA to sub-Saharan Africawere consistently Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. These three countries alsoranked among the top recipients of Japanese grant assistance and Yen loans.Other main recipients included Ghana, Malawi and Senegal. An elementof continuity is thus evident in the destination of Japanese aid to sub-Saharan Africa. Strikingly, these countries are not the among the lesserdeveloped — indicated by Human Development Indices (HDIs) — on thesub-continent. The least developed and most highly indebted countries insub-Saharan Africa — those with the lowest HDIs — receive considerablyless ODA from Japan. On the whole there is no tendency to allocate moreconcessional aid to the most indebted and least developed of the lessdeveloped sub-Saharan African countries. This trait of Japanese aid-givinghas made it the butt of criticism from other large Western donors in the sub-continent, who have called into question the professed humanitarianism inJapan's ODA. From a Japanese vantage point, however, the manifest patternof aid disbursals is merely reflective of a philosophy which dictates that aidshould be only augmentative to self-generated development efforts; a pre-established infrastructure is one prerequisite for aid efficiency. Thus, the factthat the relatively more advanced countries in sub-Saharan Africa receivethe bulk of the developmentally more important type of assistance fromJapan (that given for the infrastructural enhancement of economicinfrastructure projects), whilst the smaller, poorer countries receiverelatively small volumes of grant assistance, is congruous with Japan's stateddevelopmental purpose.

Up to now, the Japanese government has not given much attention to theother two aspects of economic co-operation — trade and investments. Thesub-continent has consistently been, and remains, a low-key destination ofthese two aspects. In the period 1970 to the mid-1980s, the import-exportratio between Japan and sub-Saharan Africa was approximately 3.5%'2; inthe first part of the 1990s only 1.2% of Japanese exports found its way tosub-Saharan African markets.13 In addition, with Japanese companies

12 Moss J & J Ravenhill, Emerging Japanese Influence in Africa: Implicationsfor the United States. University of California, Berkeley: Institute ofInternational Studies, 1985.

13 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 'Investment, Tradeand International Policy Arrangements', World Investment Report, NewYork, 1996.

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ranking among the top foreign investors in the world in the early 1990s,Japan's foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa in this period onaverage amounted to three percent.14 More importantly, Japan's trade withand investments in sub-Saharan Africa are limited to only a few states.These relations are mainly partnerships of strategic advantage — Japanesecompanies tend to invest in resource extraction projects in mineral-richcountries, whilst Japan usually imports raw materials and resources andexports capital goods such as manufactured products to sub-Saharan Africancountries. Significantly, the destination of Japanese trade and investment insub-Saharan Africa tends to coincide with Japan's selective ODA disbursalsin the region. This trend provides support for charges of neo-mercantilismin Japan's aid behaviour to sub-Saharan Africa.

In the 1990s the Japanese government has sought to buttress its economicco-operation agenda in sub-Saharan Africa through two dual andinterrelated processes: a vigorous multilateral initiative, through the TICAD(Tokyo International Conference on African Development) process, and adrive to draw the region into a system of enhanced trade and investment.This has laid the basis for the emergence of new ties between sub-SaharanAfrica and Japan.

The Tokyo International Conference on African Development

The TICAD enterprise epitomises the Japanese government's new 'Africathrust'. It was inaugurated in Tokyo in October 1993 and was co-organisedby the Japanese government, the United Nations Development Programmeand a non-governmental organisation, the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA).It drew together ministers and heads of states of sub-Saharan Africancountries, officials from the World Bank and IMF, the ECA and OAU, alongwith representatives of EU and DAC donor countries.15 The purpose of theconference was on the one hand to encourage sub-Saharan African statesto adopt and advance economic and political reforms, and on the other torestore international consciousness in Africa. Japan's initiation and

14 In contrast, over a comparable period 27% and 61 % of total Japanese FDIwent to Latin America and Asia, respectively. Figures calculated from theInternational Finance Bureau, Japan Ministry of Finance.

15 Hayashi K, 'The Japanese Foreign Policy and Economic Assistance toSouthern Africa', in The New Regional Foreign Policy of South Africa.Institute of Developing Economies, Joint Research Programme SeriesNo.107, 1994.

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sponsorship of TICAD I was partly a response to, and partly an attempt toarrest, the growing sense of donor fatigue and 'Afro-pessimism' of the early1990s. Primarily, however, it was an opportune means for the Japanesegovernment to attain a visible status in a multilateral forum — to concretisea new emphasis on multilateralism in the Japanese foreign policy.16 Giventhis, what has developed from the 1993 Conference carries great portent forthe international role of Japan. This is because there has been a significantshift in purpose from TICAD I to the follow-up conference, TICAD II, heldin October 1998.

The closure of TICAD I in 1993 saw the adoption of a Tokyo Declaration,which, with an overall purpose of attaining the economic development ofthe sub-Saharan African region, identified six goals:

A political and economic reform in sub-Saharan Africa;

A international co-operation to solve problems related to women'sissues, HIV/Aids, and the environment;

A. regional integration and co-operation among sub-Saharan Africancountries as a means to create an open trade regime;

A steps to assuage the impact of natural and other disasters, andemergency relief in the event;

A enhanced private sector activity to boost job creation and economicdevelopment;

A the application of successful development experiences in Asia todevelopment activities in Africa, and a further expansion of South-South co-operation.

These goals have received serious attention from donors and sub-SaharanAfrican recipients alike: following TICAD I, the Japanese government hasboosted its bilateral ODA programme to sub-Saharan Africa, with disbursalsto aid moves towards démocratisation in several countries, the dispatch ofelection observers, and the disposal of funds to assist economic reform inseveral sub-Saharan African states. At the ninth session of UNCTAD held inSouth Africa in April 1996, the Japanese government announced a financialcontribution of US$100 million to the promotion of education in Africa. On

16 Dennis Yasutomo argues that Japanese foreign policy in the 1990s is lessreactive, but proactive. This proactivism is manifested in Japan's emergenceas an important voice in multilateral forums. Yasutomo DT, The NewMultilateralism in japan's Foreign Policy. London: Macmillan, 1995.

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a multilateral front, the ensuing TICAD process was geared through a seriesof inter-regional follow-up sessions held under the sponsorship of Japan, theUNDP, and the GCA. In this the process had evolved towards twodivergent ends — one which sought to reverse declining aid disbursals tosub-Saharan Africa by formulating a more market-oriented system of aid-giving, one more palatable to aid donors; another which sought totransplant Asian developmental experiences to Africa, to promote the ideaof 'adapting Asian models to the African setting1.17

The latter — making Asia's development experience relevant to Africa —was largely the consequence of Japan's input, and came to constitute theethos of the entire TICAD process. The mechanism whereby this would beattained — through enhanced Asia-Africa co-operation and political andeconomic involvement — formed the basis of subsequent proceedings: asa build-up to TICAD 11, the Japanese government drove a progressive, andelaborate, preparatory process. An Asian-African Forum was held inBandung in 1994, an East and South African Workshop was held in 1995,and a West and Central African Regional Workshop in 1996. In June 1997a second Asia-Africa Forum met in Bangkok, and a TICAD II PreparatoryConference in November 1997. In 1998 a series of final preparatoryworkshops were held in sub-Saharan Africa. The cornerstone of thesemeetings was the question: how would co-operation among sub-SaharanAfrican and Asian countries be effected? An Agenda for Action to this endwas produced, which formed the foundation of the second TokyoInternational Conference on African Development. The theme informing thisAgenda was that sub-Saharan Africa's development will only come throughjoint efforts from both donors and recipients — through a partnershipbetween sub-Saharan Africa, donor countries and Asian countries;nonetheless, sub-Saharan African countries had to take own responsibilityfor their development.

One may see the consequences of the TICAD process as a vindication ofJapan's economic co-operation programme. This is because the principlesupon which TICAD is founded — those of partnership and ownership —largely echo Japan's development philosophy. On the one hand emphasisis placed on the importance of private sector investments as an auxiliary toODA (the Japanese notion of a comprehensive approach to development);on the other, recipients are placed under the obligation to create conduciveenvironments for development. Development becomes a mutual enterprise

17 Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Official Development Assistance: AnnualReport, op cit..

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where the developing country is not only a recipient, but a contributor toits own economic development.

The contents of the TICAD II Agenda for Action sought to concretise theprinciples of ownership and partnership. Sub-Saharan African signatories tothe Agenda would undertake to ensure a serviceable environment fordevelopment by practising good governance and conflict management, andadopting measures aimed at political stability and peace. Donor countries,as their partners in development, would for their part create a morefavourable international economic environment for sub-Saharan Africanstates through greater debt relief, and by opening up their markets for awider range of exports from sub-Saharan African countries, along withincreased foreign direct investment. In addition, concessional resourceflows, in the form of bilateral ODA, would still be maintained.18

To enhance partnerships between sub-Saharan Africa and non-donorcountries, three areas of Asia-Africa co-operation were demarcated: socialdevelopment, agriculture and the environment, and private sectordevelopment. Whilst it was noted that directly as a product of the TICADinitiative, bilateral agreements between sub-Saharan Africa and Asiancountries have been growing in the fields of infrastructure, human resourcedevelopment, food and agriculture and natural resource exploration,19 itwas suggested that co-operation between sub-Saharan Africa and Asiancountries would be consummated most effectively in the field of privatesector development. The TICAD II Agenda outlined several concomitantproposals towards accomplishing private sector exchange between the tworegions. The TICAD II private sector programme included the following: thatboth Asian and sub-Saharan African countries create environments whichpromote private investment; that appropriate technologies be transferredfrom Asia to sub-Saharan Africa; that to increase the attractiveness to Asianforeign investors, processes of regional economic integration in sub-Saharan

18 Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Preparatory Conference for theSecond Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICADII), Co-chairs' Summary Report, November 1997.

19 United Nations Development Programme, Bangkok Statement onFurthering Asia-Africa Co-operation, June 1997.

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Africa be strengthened; and that synergies be created between the state andthe private sector on the one hand, and ODA and private capital flows onthe other.20

This latter aspect of the TICAD II Agenda is significant, since it carries someimport for future relations between not only the Asian region and sub-Saharan Africa, but particularly between Japan and sub-Saharan Africa. Inthe main the programme proposes that Asia-Africa co-operation be foundedupon alliances built among Asian and sub-Saharan African statebureaucracies and private sectors. In this set-up, a relationship of economicco-operation is established between sub-Saharan African governments andtheir Asian counterparts, where Asian states become disbursers of aid tosub-Saharan Africa. Such aid is augmented by increased trade andinvestment by Asian companies.

Essentially, however, this Asia-Africa co-operation programme seeks toextend the existing system of economic co-operation which Japan hasestablished in sub-Saharan Africa. To appreciate the full implications of this,one needs to understand the nature of Japan's aid system: it is a complexwhich connects the Japanese state and the Japanese private sector. Whilethis has consistently led Western observers to accuse Japan of practising tiedaid, where Japan's ODA (development finances from the public sector) islinked to the outward-oriented business activities of large Japanesecompanies, a different, more benign perspective colours it as the 'Japaneseway' of doing things; a 'Japanese model of development1. As earlier noted,this typical mode of economic co-operation in Japan has been atypicallyapplied to sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, foreign direct investment aside, theJapanese state, which usually supplies non-concessional import, export andinvestment loans to facilitate the activities of Japanese corporations indeveloping regions, has been extending much less of these to sub-SaharanAfrica.21 The outcome of TICAD II indicates that the Japanese government

20 Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Workshop for Western/CentralAfrica on The TICAD II Preparatory Process and Asia-Africa Co-operation,May 1998.

21 These type of flows, known as other official flows are usually extended bythe Japan Export-Import Bank (JEXIM), a public financial institution. In theperiod 1993-1995 on average 5% of the bank's total loan commitmentswere directed to sub-Saharan Africa; The bulk of this was directed to theAsian region - an average of 45% over the corresponding period(calculated from Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official Development

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is seeking to entrench an expanded network of economic co-operation insub-Saharan Africa. In support of this aim, new trends in Japan's trade andinvestment activities in sub-Saharan Africa have become significant: over thelast few years most of Japan's economic and political interest has beenfocused on Southern Africa and in particular South Africa.

A Basis for New Economic Relations

The inception of democracy in 1994 in South Africa has led to a revival ofJapanese interest in the country. This is evident in the progressiveinvolvement of the Japanese state and businesses since 1994. Apart fromthe rekindling of political relations — which commenced with theupgrading of diplomatic ties to embassy status in 1992, and culminated inan official visit by Deputy-president Thabo Mbeki in April 1998 — Japanhas also exhibited a distinct developmental interest in South Africa.

In 1994 the Japanese government committed an aid package amounting toUS$1.3 billion. In terms of absolute volume, this presently ranks SouthAfrica as the largest recipient of Japanese aid in sub-Saharan Africa.Moreover this has been accompanied by a moderate increase in foreigndirect investments by Japanese companies in South Africa, the most high-profile being the 1996 investments by Toyota Motor Corporation, NissanMotor Corporation and Bridgestone, amounting to a cumulative total ofR1.2 billion. However, given that the rate of FDI by Japanese companieshas not been as brisk as expected by the South African government, it issignificant that other smaller, though longer-term investments by Japanesecompanies mainly include joint ventures with large South Africancompanies. A plausible reason is that this poses a safer option to Japanesebusinessmen who are uncertain about the political stability of the country.Most significantly, however, such joint ventures are predominantly gearedtowards mineral extraction and processing industries, mainly in theSouthern African region. A prominent case is an aluminium smelting projectin Mozambique, implemented since early 1998 under the partnership of theIndustrial Development Corporation (IDC, a South Africa parastatal), a SouthAfrican mining company, Gencor-Billiton, and a consortium of Japanesecompanies.22

Assistance Annual Reports, 1992-1996).

22 'Japan Means Business - SA Commits to Helping Africa with Loan Surety',The Cape Times, 9 April 1998.

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Indeed, the interest in South Africa as an entry point into Southern Africais not limited to the Japanese private sector. The Japanese state, through itsextension of aid to South Africa, also projects a regional bent. The 1994 aidcommitment to South Africa included a substantial portion of ODA gearedfor disbursal as grant assistance, technical co-operation and concessionalloan funding (a total volume of US$300 million). The bulk was, however,destined for non-concessional loans extended through JEXIM, and a creditline for trade and overseas investment insurance (both of which amountedto US$500 million).23 If one considers that previous investment financefrom Japan to the entire sub-Saharan Africa region amounted to an averageof 0.9% in the first half of the 1990s,24 the 1994 investment aid committedto South Africa, represents an unprecedented figure. Furthermore, all of theJEXIM loans were destined for South African parastals for the purpose offunding economic infrastructure projects — loans were extended to ESKOM,the national electricity provider, for the improvement of power transitionand distribution lines; to TRANSNET, for port and railway construction andimprovement; and to the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) toact as on-Iender of loans to encourage small business development, and thelaying of economic infrastructure in South Africa.25 Significantly, bothESKOM and TRANSNET are large infrastructure service providers whichhave extensive bases in the Southern African region, whilst the DBSA hasbeen a wholesale lender in the region since 1994. All of these indicate astrategy on the part of Japan to incorporate Southern Africa into adevelopment scheme initiated and centred in South Africa.

In this regard Ampiah26 contends that a symbiotic and functionalrelationship exists between the Japanese state and businesses in SouthernAfrica, where the state, through its provision of ODA and aid to the region,

23 Information obtained from Japanese Embassy, Pretoria.

24 This figure is calculated from information obtained in the Japan Export-Import Bank Annual Reports, 1994-1996. WWW documents athttp://japanexim.fo.jp

25 South Africa Department of Finance, Status Report: Japanese AssistancePackage - February 1998. Pretoria, February 1998.

26 Ampiah K, Japanese Investments in South Africa, 1992-1996: The State,Private Enterprise and Strategic Minerals. Johannesburg, University of theWitwatersrand: Japan Studies Occasional Paper: East Asia Project, 1998.

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lays a bedrock for private sector activity. He emphasises as important thatthis is not a one-way process — the private sector also applies somepressure on the Japanese government to support their activities. Themanifestation of this 'support' is the government's attempts to meet theSouthern African development imperative: to lay an infrastructural basis inthe region. Significantly, however, both the state and the Japanese privatesector have exhibited bias towards selective industries — notably the miningindustry — whilst little attention has been given to the region'smanufacturing and consumer industries. This feature has served to castdoubt on Japan's purported commitment to help develop the SouthernAfrican region; it reflects, instead upon a less altruistic purpose on the partof Japan.

Conclusion and Prospects

Against this backdrop, the very inclusive tone of the TICAD II Asia-Africaco-operation programme is of importance. What is aimed at is a deepeningand an amplification of Japan's economic co-operation in sub-SaharanAfrica. The prospect of such a project becomes tenable when one considersthe role which Japan has played in the East and Southeast Asian economies,and is starting to play in Southern Africa. In East Asia a production networkhas been built up incrementally through the gradual diffusion of Japanesecompanies. In this region, Japanese public-private sector linkages have beena prime feature of the outward expansion of an eventual region-wide exportindustry. Recent state and business activities in Southern Africa allow for areasonable projection that a similar effect is being sought by Japan in thisregion. An attempt by the Japanese government to synthesise the tworegional spheres through the TICAD process is feasible.

These endeavours have, however, had their wings severely clipped by theonset of the Asian financial crises in 1997, a rolling phenomenon which hascome to threaten the financial integrity of many national economies,including that of Japan. The economic pay-offs which Japan propagatedthrough its Asia-Africa co-operation programme may not materialise. Theimplications for sub-Saharan Africa are momentous. In many instances,Japan's TICAD enterprise was a straw clutched at as a hope of survival bya region which has had to face rising cuts to their aid disbursals. Now thepossibility is heightened that development funds will be further divertedfrom sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, in the reigning international economicmilieu, it remains to be seen how much consequence developed countries

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will give to their TICAD II commitments to ease sub-Saharan Africa'spassage into the global economy.

The TICAD initiative is indicative of a genuine aspiration on the part ofJapan to form significant ties with a region which has remained 'dark anddistant'. The fulcrum of these ties is however less economic than political:TICAD represents the essence of a new niche which sub-Saharan Africa hascome to fill for Japan. Relations with the sub-continent have allowed Japanto insert an Asian identity into its foreign policy schema. As such, a non-Western common ground can be framed between Japan and sub-SaharanAfrica. For this reason, sub-Saharan Africa constitutes a useful partner inJapan's multilateral foreign policy. Conceivably, this will form the basis forenhanced political multilateral co-operation in the future.

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