home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Countries of the World
/
COUNTRYS.BIN
/
dp
/
0200
/
02008.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1991-06-25
|
30KB
|
476 lines
$Unique_ID{COW02008}
$Pretitle{230}
$Title{Japan
Chapter 6D. Countries in Asia and other Countries}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Toshio George Tsukahira}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{japan
economic
asia
countries
relations
japan's
united
japanese
trade
development}
$Date{1981}
$Log{}
Country: Japan
Book: Japan, A Country Study
Author: Toshio George Tsukahira
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date: 1981
Chapter 6D. Countries in Asia and other Countries
Asia
Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors at the beginning of the 1980s
were at a delicate transition stage. In the face of major changes in
international power relations affecting the region, its leadership was being
forced by internal and external pressures to develop a broader, more political
role in Asia than it had in the three postwar decades. The dimensions of the
new role were not yet clear, but it was quite evident that the country could
no longer adhere to its omni-directional and priority-on-economics policies in
Asia. The government was faced by demands for more generous economic
assistance from former colonies and victims of its wartime actions and by
domestic pressures, calling for a more independent and assertive Asian policy.
Some of its neighbors and the United States were also prodding Japan to play
an expanded role in maintaining the security of the region.
Before the 1970s the country's relations with the rest of Asia had been
concerned mainly with the promotion of its far-flung, multiplying economic
interest in the region through trade, technical assistance, and aid programs.
Its major problems were the economic weakness and political instability of its
trading partners and the growing apprehension expressed by Asian leaders over
Japan's so-called overpresence in their region.
Japan began to normalize relations with its neighbors during the 1950s
after a series of intermittent negotiations with them, which led to the
payment of war reparations to Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, and South
Vietnam. Thailand's reparations claims were not settled until 1963. Japan's
reintegration into the Asian scene was also facilitated early by its joining
the Colombo Plan in December 1954 and by its attendance at the Afro-Asian
Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955.
In the late 1950s Japan made a limited beginning in its aid program. In
1958 it extended the equivalent of US $50 million in credits to India-the first
of its kind in post-World War II years. As in subsequent cases involving
India, as well as Ceylon, Malaysia, Taiwan, Pakistan, and South Korea, these
credits were rigidly bound to projects that promoted plant and equipment
purchases from Japan. In 1958 Japan also set up the Asia Economic Research
Institute (later renamed the Institute of Development Economics) as the
principal training center for its specialists in economic diplomacy.
In the early 1960s the government adopted a more forward posture in
seeking to establish contacts in Asia. In 1960 the Asia Economic Research
Institute was placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of International
Trade and Industry (MITI). In 1961 the government created the Overseas
Economic Cooperation Fund as a new lending agency. The following year the
Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency made its debut. In 1963 Japan became a
full member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).
By the mid-1960s its role had become highly visible in Asia and elsewhere
in the world as well. As economic and trade expansion burgeoned, leaders began
to question the propriety and wisdom of what they variously described as "mere
economism," an "export-first policy," and the "commercial motives of aid."
Their desire to contribute more to solution of the North-South problem, as
they dubbed the issue, was symbolized in part by Japan's leading role in the
convening of the first Ministerial Conference on the Economic Development of
Southeast Asia in Tokyo in April 1966. Attended by delegates from Japan, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and South Vietnam, and
observers from Kampuchea and Indonesia, this conference sought to promote
regional economic cooperation. This gathering led to the founding in December
1966 of the Asian Development Bank, under a Japanese president but having
headquarters in Manila.
The decade of the 1970s was for Japan one of great changes and
adjustments in its Asia policy, related in part to Nixon's 1972 visit to
China. In September of that year, Japan, adjusting to the changing realities
of international politics, moved decisively to recognize the Beijing regime.
As anticipated, Taiwan immediately broke off formal relations; however Japan
nonetheless managed to continue lucrative economic and trade ties with Taiwan.
With respect to the Korean peninsula, Japan in the early 1970s
increasingly demonstrated its willingness to adopt a more even-handed approach
towards both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and South
Korea despite strong objections emanating from the latter. Since the late
1950s it had viewed an evenhanded approach as offering certain advantages such
as added flexibility to adjust to changing developments on the peninsula;
broadened capacity to influence developments through contacts with each of the
opposing sides; and increased stability in the region, resulting from wider
acceptance of the two-Korea situation. The government maintained official
contacts with North Korea through embassy-to-embassy contacts in Moscow while
unofficial contact was kept up by frequent visits to P'yongyang by members of
the Diet and business delegations. Trade had grown from roughly US $58 million
in 1970 to over US $360 million by 1974, when trade relations began to run into
difficulties because of North Korea's defaults on outstanding loans. In 1980
after three years of negotiations, a long-term agreement on rescheduling trade
debts-which had reached a total of US $360 million for the decade-was reached.
The Japanese side reportedly agreed to a two-year deferment of debt payments
and a lower interest rate than the original loans had borne. By the end of
1980 the revived trade with North Korea had risen to a level that was higher
than the level reached before the debt crisis.
Meanwhile relations with South Korea had also run into difficulty.
Japan's stake in close ties had been very large since the end of World War II.
Because of the United States military presence there, South Korea served as a
vital security barrier. After resolution of the political differences of the
early postwar period through a normalization treaty, signed in mid-1965,
relations between the two countries improved considerably. South Korea became
Japan's largest trading partner after the United States. Close political ties
between members of the Japanese establishment and key South Korean government
and business leaders were instrumental in keeping the relationship friendly in
spite of the lack of mutual respect and admiration at the popular level.
After 1973-74, however, official relations became very cool. The
kidnapping of Korean opposition leader, Kim Dae Jung, reportedly by Korean
security agents, from his hotel room in Tokyo in August 1973 did much to sour
relations. The pistol slaying of the wife of President Park Chung Hee in 1974
by a Korean from Japan who was actually trying to assassinate Park himself led
to additional strain. Another source of friction was the Japanese delay in
ratifying an agreement on joint Korean-Japanese development of the continental
shelf adjacent to their coasts. The agreement had been signed and ratified by
South Korea in 1974, but Japan delayed its ratification because it feared
spoiling the developing relationship with China, which had made known it
opposed the agreement insofar as it impinged on Chinese interests and rights
in areas of the East China Sea.
After the advent to power of Presiden