Japan's foreign aid: old and new contests

Abstract

Domestic and international contests explain the transformation of Japan's foreign aid programme begun in the early 1950s. Through contests between domestic players, Japan has streamlined its aid processes by introducing institutional innovations, accommodating new actors in aid policy and delivery, and responding more sensitively to public opinion and independent advice. At the international level, contests have come from the Development Assistance Committee/Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD), the USA, and China. Through these contests, Japan has emerged as a more rounded aid donor. Its new aid model blends Western principles with concepts of ‘self-help’, favouring large infrastructure projects that serve both Japan's and recipient countries’ interests.     

Attempts at diversification: Mexico and Pacific Asia

This article aims to explain the development of Mexico's relations with Pacific Asia. Based on the historical background of Mexico's relations with Asia and on internal and international transformations, we identify the interests of Mexican political actors in Pacific Asia. We provide an overview of the existing political and economic relations between Mexico and Pacific Asia, demonstrating that the success of diversification has been very limited. By trying to explain the gap between the strategic goals and the existing relations we focus on the domestic politics in Mexico. We conclude that intra-elite conflicts had a negative effect on the diversification attempts, since those conflicts prevented Mexican policy-makers from establishing the institutional basis for successfully implementing their foreign policy goals.     

State transformation and the domestic politics of foreign aid in Taiwan

Abstract

This article challenges the dominant narrative that overlooks the role of domestic factors in Taiwanese foreign aid in favour of politics cast at the cross-Strait and international levels. It examines the emergence and effects of partisan politics on Taipei's foreign aid policies, including aid budgets and the motivation for providing foreign aid. It argues that, rather than the cross-Strait conflict as such, it was contests and rivalries among Taiwan's political parties and government agencies – underpinned by ongoing projects of state building – that shaped the variable objectives, policies and processes of Taipei's foreign aid-giving.     

The persistence of reified Asia as reality in Japanese foreign policy narratives

Abstract

Asia is narrated in Japanese foreign policy pronouncements as an opportunity as well as a threat. Despite the purported transformation from militarism to pacifism since August 1945, the reified images of Asia as an ‘entity out there’ remain resilient. The image of a dangerous Asia prompted Japan to engage in its programme of colonialism before the War and compels policy makers to address territorial disputes with Asian neighbours today. Simultaneously, Asia persistently symbolises an opportunity for Tokyo to exploit. Hence, despite the psychological rupture of August 1945, reified Asia remains a reality in Japanese foreign policy.     

BRICS,the southern model,and the evolving landscape of development assistance: Toward a new taxonomy

In recent years, there has been an explosion of categories and labels to account for the expansion of forms of cooperation beyond the membership of the Development Assistance Committee. Such hype has led to the construction of the so‐called southern model as the archetype of development cooperation coming from non‐Development Assistance Committee countries that are somehow committed to the principles of the South–South cooperation. The present article challenges the idea of a southern model by providing an analysis of drivers, tools, and modality of development assistance.     

Security architecture in Asia: the interplay of regional and global levels

I argue that there is a distinct and longstanding regional structure in East Asia that is of at least equal importance to the global level in shaping the region's security dynamics. Without considering this regional level neither ‘unipolar’ nor ‘multipolar’ designations can explain East Asian international security. To make this case, I deploy regional security complex theory both to characterize and explain developments in East Asia since the end of the Cold War. The shift from bipolarity to unipolarity is well understood in thinking about how the ending of the Cold War impacted on East Asia. Less written about in Western security literature are the parallel developments at the regional level. Prominent among these are the relative empowerment of China in relation to its neighbours, and the effect of this, as well as of the growth of regional institutions, and the attachment of security significance to East Asian economic developments, in merging the security dynamics of Northeast and Southeast Asia. How China relates to its East Asian region, and how the US and China relate to each other, are deeply intertwined issues which centrally affect not only the future of East Asian, but also global, security. With the notable exception of some crisis between China and Taiwan, this whole pattern looks mainly dependent on internal developments within China and the US. Also significant is whether the basic dynamic of interstate relations in East Asia is more defined by the Westphalian principle of balancing, or by the bandwagoning imperative more characteristic of suzerain-vassal relationships. The main probability is for more of the same, with East Asian security staying within a fairly narrow band between mild conflict formation and a rather odd and weak sort of security regime in which an outside power, the US, plays the key role.     

A new dynamism in Sino-Japanese security relations: Japan's strategic use of foreign aid

Abstract

In November 2004 a Chinese nuclear submarine cruised into Japan's territorial waters near the Okinawa Islands. In response, the Japanese government dispatched several Japanese naval ships and planes to chase the Chinese submarine until it navigated into international waters. This event, which potentially could have become the first exchange of fire between Japan and China since the Second World War, illuminated increasingly problematic security relations between the two neighbouring countries in the twenty-first century. In fact, deterioration of Sino-Japanese security relations is not a recent phenomenon but has already been evident since the mid-1990s, when Japan imposed a series of economic sanctions on China. Between 1995 and 2000 Japan had suspended its foreign aid to China in protest against: China's nuclear weapons tests; China's large scale war game including the launch of missiles across the Taiwan Strait; and Chinese naval activities in disputed areas in the East China Sea. This article looks at Sino-Japanese security relations since the mid-1990s through three case studies of the aid sanctions imposed by Japan on China. It clarifies the domestic political and bureaucratic interests that motivated aid sanctions and determined the decision-making process leading to these sanctions. The article argues, that with certain politico-security interests, Japanese governments actively used foreign aid as a strategic instrument to counter provocative military actions by China in the East Asian region since the mid-1990s. Despite the limited influence that Japanese aid sanctions have actually had on Chinese military behaviour, Japan's strategic use of foreign aid has undeniably created a new dynamism in security relations between the two neighbouring great powers in Asia.     

Gender,quality of life,and growth in Asia 1970-90

This paper examines the gender distribution of the benefits of economic growth in several Asian economies from 1970–90. Using Borda rank ordering, we compare the progress made in these countries towards closing the gender gap in well-being. In addition to commonly-used indicators, trends in the ratio of females to males in the population are examined. We explore determinants of changes in this ratio, using regression analysis. The results indicate that gender equity in quality-of-life ratings is highest in those Asian economies that grew the slowest over the period in question. Further, the data indicate that economic growth does not have a significant effect on the female-to-male population ratios for this set of countries. Variables that affect women's bargaining power do, however, have a positive effect on relative female life chances, as does spending on public education.     

Southeast Asia in the study of international relations: The rise and decline of a region

Three features stand out from the literature on Southeast Asia's international relations, written over the last fifty years: the dominance of extra‐regional scholarship; an overwhelming emphasis on regional security, and a related preponderance of realist perspectives; and the appearance, consolidation, and ebbing of the perceived utility of Southeast Asia as a useful analytical region. During the 1990s, there has been a questioning of the realist assumptions which have underlain international relations writing on the region, and there has been increased emphasis on economic issues. Southeast Asians are making an increasingly important contribution to the study of their own region's international relations, though mainly in terms of policy‐oriented research. The most important recent development has been the questioning of Southeast Asia's usefulness as an analytical region, in view of the growing intensity of economic and security relations between Northeast and Southeast Asia.     

ASEAN and the securitization of transnational crime in Southeast Asia

This article studies the securitization of transnational crime by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since 1996–97. It first introduces transnational crime as a criminal matter before positioning it within the international security debate through an elaboration of the Copenhagen School and its securitization theory. It then examines whether transnational crime has been articulated in security terms in the ASEAN rhetoric. The article demonstrates that the member states have made statements in which they make claims about security in the context of crime. Yet, there is little evidence that this has encouraged regional policy-makers to adopt common security responses. ASEAN has failed to implement joint actions due to domestic circumstances but also because of its own consensus model and resistance to institutional reforms. Finally, the article suggests that the problem of transnational crime could be dealt with more effectively if it was approached primarily as a criminal matter rather than as a security issue.     

Inequality,marketisation and the left: Schools policy in England and Sweden

It is argued in this article that the marketisation of schools policy has a tendency to produce twin effects: an increase in educational inequality, and an increase in general satisfaction with the schooling system. However, the effect on educational inequality is very much stronger where prevailing societal inequality is higher. The result is that cross‐party political agreement on the desirability of such reforms is much more likely where societal inequality is lower (as the inequality effects are also lower). Counterintuitively, then, countries that are more egalitarian – and so typically thought of as being more left‐wing – will have a higher likelihood of adopting marketisation than more unequal countries. Evidence is drawn from a paired comparison of English and Swedish schools policies from the 1980s to the present. Both the policy history and elite interviews lend considerable support for the theory in terms of both outcomes and mechanisms.     

Editorial introduction: international marriage,rights and the state in East and Southeast Asia

The dramatic increase in intra-Asia cross-nationality marriage is a distinct, yet relatively under-researched, aspect of globalization and regionalization. Most existing research focuses on individual experiences of international marriage, but articles in this issue are intended to examine the politics of legal recognition: namely, how states categorize, legitimate and de-legitimate various intimacies, and how gender, religion, nationality and class play their roles in this process. More specifically, the articles address the following four themes: (1) the links between the institutionalization of marriage and ideologies of family in the process of nation-building; (2) the coexistence and conflicts between different legal systems vis-à-vis marriage and the related social implications; (3) gender and its implications for access to citizenship; and (4) recent policy changes in nationality laws and the reconstruction of ‘national identities’ in the transnational context. Thus, collectively this volume deepens our understanding of citizenship issues in East and Southeast Asia by teasing out how, in the case of foreign spouses, membership of a nation is determined legally, politically, culturally and socially.     

Oil and territory in Putin's relations with China and Japan

Abstract

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has centralized decision making in Moscow and has reduced the role of domestic actors. He has demonstrated his own personal management of foreign policy in relation to China and Japan. He has used negotiations over oil and territory to place Russia in a more favourable position between them. In relation to oil, he has overruled the oil company Yukos and others within his own government and decided in favour of the Japanese pipeline route, which includes a branch line to China. Putin decided on the Japanese route because it promised access to wider markets in the Asia Pacific, besides China. It also entailed deeper Japanese involvement in Russia's development and reduced Russian dependence upon China. In terms of territory, Putin undermined the power of local opposition and offered territorial settlements to both China and Japan, to remove sources of future tension. With China he compromised over the river islands which had been left outstanding since the main border agreement was signed in 1991. To Japan he again offered a compromise over the disputed islands based on the 1956 agreement to improve relations. Russians may hope that energy dependence would induce the Japanese to become more willing to compromise over the territorial issue. The Japanese, however, expect that Russia's need for funding for the pipeline would allow them to resist that pressure and to demand a return of all disputed islands. If Russia emerges as an energy supplier to both China and Japan its influence and its regional role would be enhanced. Much depends upon the prospects for the oil pipeline and its branch line, whose feasibility has been questioned.     

International marriage in East and Southeast Asia: trends and research emphases

This paper gives an overview on international marriage in East and Southeast Asia. It first reviews the available data on the incidence and trends of transnational marriage. It then discusses the factors generally cited as contributing to the rising incidence of international marriage in the region: the increased mobility of population, particularly with respect to tourism, business travel, short-term employment and international study; and marriage market issues in a number of countries of the region, leading to deliberate and targeted search for spouses in other countries. It also reviews the types of international marriages in the region, including the national, ethnic and social characteristics of spouses in such marriages. Finally, it discusses the issues and problems covered and not (or inadequately) covered in the literature of international marriage in East and Southeast Asia in relation to the questions of rights and of the boundaries and sovereignty of the state.     

China,the United States,and order transition in East Asia: An economy-security Nexus approach

A dualistic-order thesis has been emerged as a widely-used concept to describe East Asia’s regional dynamics. According to the thesis, the economic and security spheres of the region have become divorced from one other, whereby China and the United States dominate the economic and security realms, respectively. This paper demonstrates the deficiencies of this thesis, based on a comprehensive assessment of the economic and security developments in the region, as well as the strategic choices of small and middle regional powers. In order to form a more accurate and systematic understanding of regional prosperity and stability, this paper develops an economy-security nexus approach by integrating the interactions of regional actors in both the economic and security realms into a unified framework. From this perspective, East Asian regional order is sustained by a delicate coupling of regional economic and security configurations: ‘hot economics’ is accompanied with cooperative security interactions. Although China and the United States are not the dominant actors in either field, their relatively benign interactions in both realms collectively play a significant role by shaping the strategic environment for regional actors, allowing them to enjoy a large degree of strategic flexibility and increase their security and prosperity.     

A history of sex and the state in Southeast Asia: class,intimacy and invisibility

This essay offers a history of international marriages that questions the definition of marriage and what it meant to belong, as a legal subject or citizen, to a colonial state in Southeast Asia. European imperial states deployed monogamous marriage alongside other weapons of empire as a justification for intervention into Southeast Asian societies. With monogamous marriage came also European notions of belonging that traced surnames and legal subject status (later citizenship) via husbands and fathers. The ramifications for individuals in international marriages between Asian women and European men are well known. However, the vast majority of ‘international marriages’ were not those between colonial Europeans and Southeast Asian women, but between Southeast Asian women and lower class Asian men from India and China. Colonial states ignored or failed to register these lower class intra-Asian intimacies because their unions did not threaten colonial rule so long as they ensured a continuous pool of labor and promoted the colonial economy. Unlike recent theories which argue for an omniscient state that penetrates into the personal lives of its populations, this essay maintains that states intensely regulated marriage and belonging for some subjects but not for others. This longstanding unevenness in the management of intimate unions provides a historical context for understanding shifts in the marital regimes of contemporary postcolonial states. Taking a long-term view, the essay asks if recent increases in international marriages might be better understood as spikes rather than as absolute increases resulting from ‘globalization’. A historical framework ties the rise and fall of international marriage to early modern trade patterns, imperialism's labor requirements, war, and the recent demand for labor that has arisen from low birth rates and economic changes. Each of these ‘events’ entailed a large-scale movement of populations which resulted in the development of intimate unions.     

Antipodean Statebuilding: The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and Australian Intervention in the South Pacific

Abstract

This essay analyses Australian-led statebuilding efforts in Solomon Islands, through the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). RAMSI has often been offered as a successful example of statebuilding worthy of international consideration. Here, some of the limitations of the RAMSI mission and its progress in rebuilding the ‘failed’ South Pacific state will be carefully assessed. Despite significant short-term statebuilding successes in restoring security and stabilizing the economy, RAMSI faces long-term challenges centred on the complex politics of political community-building. As an example of ‘best practice’ statebuilding, RAMSI highlights the complexities involved with the two-level game of international intervention: the (conflicting) challenge of reconciling the need to respect sovereign sensitivities with the need to undertake robust political engagement.     

Chinese and Japanese investment in Southeast and South Asia: case studies of the electronics and automobile industries

Abstract

This article uses extensive fieldwork data to focus on the question of how Chinese and Japanese companies are competing in neighboring countries of Asia, and what economic forces will shape their future growth in the region. It begins by briefly discussing the history of Chinese and Japanese investment in the South and Southeast Asian regions. It traces the development of Japanese overseas investment policies, as well as China's more recent ‘Going Out’ government program to encourage overseas flows of capital. It then builds on prior political economy work as it uses case study focuses, with primary data based on the author's fieldwork research in several nations of Southeast Asia and in India, of the two key sectors of automobiles and electronics. It compares and contrasts the investment strategies of companies from each country, as well as the successes and failures of investments in the industries. It finds that Japanese companies’ advantages lie in industries utilizing advanced technology and management skills. Though the Japanese continue to lead in many areas, including automobiles, they have begun to face competition and potentially reduced profits in vital manufacturing areas. Meanwhile, Chinese overseas companies have made significant advances in the consumer electronics sector, using low prices and good quality, though overseas automobile investments have gained little traction. The article concludes that, if the Chinese can improve their product quality, capitalize on improving managerial skills and a deeper level of experience in the region, and establish brands they can sell with reliable distribution networks, Japanese companies could face losses to their Asian neighbor in these important parts of the continent they have dominated for decades.     

Valence politics and electoral choice in a new democracy: The case of Taiwan

After two peaceful alternations of political power in a single decade, Taiwan is a democratic success story, demonstrating levels of party competition, turnout rates and patterns of civic engagement similar to those in mature Western democracies. What factors drive electoral choice in Taiwan's new democracy? This paper addresses this question by testing rival models of voting behavior using the Taiwan Elections and Democratization Study (TEDS) 2008 presidential election survey data and the 2010 mayoral election survey data. Analyses show that, similar to their counterparts in mature democracies, Taiwanese voters place more emphasis on the performance of political parties and their leaders in delivering policies designed to address valence issues concerning broadly shared policy goals than on position issues or more general ideological stances that divide the electorate. Findings demonstrating the strength of the valence politics model of electoral choice in Taiwan closely resemble the results of analyses of competing models of voting behavior in Western countries such as Great Britain and the United States.     

The human rights and 'Asian values' debate in Southeast Asia: Trying to clarify the key issues

This article investigates the validity of the concept of 'Asian values' in Southeast Asia, and attempts to explain and reconcile where possible some of the key differences between the position on human rights of ASEAN, which has remained semi-united despite internal tensions, and 'the West', particularly the US, and the non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) in the ongoing 'Asian values' debate. The article explores differences over the issues of the changeability of values and hence rights as these affect the 'universality' argument, the relevance of timing and sequence, the omission of crime by agencies other than the state as a source of human rights violations, and the controversial issue of the use of conditionality by the West. It is argued that, in fact, the debate principally concerns the question of what constitutes 'good government' and the 'good society', and takes the position that the question of how to achieve these is significantly influenced by the values of a government and a society.