Asian crises a test to Japanese diplomacy
Asian crises a test to Japanese diplomacy
By Brian Williams
TOKYO (Reuters): This is not the best of times to be the world's biggest aid donor.
After years of reaping business benefits from giving generous aid, Japan finds itself in the thick of a host of crises in its own backyard of Asia that have its diplomacy stretched to the limit.
From Indonesia to India, and from Cambodia to Afghanistan, Japan has found itself repeatedly thrust to the fore in seeking ways to defuse crises through its once-famed chequebook diplomacy.
However, as Japan's once invincible economy has been challenged, so are questions being raised about what a chequebook can do when the going gets tough.
The results, at best, are mixed.
Most analysts credit Japan's economic influence with helping to at least bring together warring sides in Cambodia and Afghanistan so that a form of peace talks could start.
But in the bigger tests involving Indonesia and India, Japan, like the world's only superpower the United States, has found its influence limited, if not non-existent.
India last week ignored a personal plea by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto not to resume nuclear testing, and a trip by Hashimoto to Indonesia in March now appears to have only delayed inevitable unrest in the country over economic restructuring.
Nozomu Akizuki, professor of Asian diplomacy at Tokyo's Meiji Gakuin University, says it is not that Japan has lost its chequebook touch, but just that the world has changed and become more complicated.
"Under the balance of power in place during the Cold War, it was easy to know what should be done diplomatically and it was easy to predict the outcome," he said.
"But with the end of the Cold War, there are no specific formulas or methods of diplomacy that work," he said.
Akizuki argues that with issues now more complicated, it is difficult to know who and what to write a cheque for, which could lead to Japan adopting a lower diplomatic profile.
"In past decades, Japan diplomacy focused on its economic strength," he said.
But with Japan's own economic difficulties, including cuts in its aid around the world, Tokyo needs to seek a new diplomatic path if it is to maintain influence.
"In this sense, Japan must drastically change its diplomatic mind-set in a new world order," Akizuki said.
Akio Watanabe, professor of international politics at Tokyo's Aoyama Gakuin University, said Japan had been reduced to making mainly symbolic diplomatic gestures.
"Japan reacted very swiftly to India, a very rare case. But it's basically symbolic and you can't expect India to say, 'OK, we'll quit.' They're not that naive. The move was more to show the world that Japan is doing what it must," Watanabe said.
On Indonesia, Watanabe said Japan's hands also were tied because the crisis there has strategic implications that could extend to the shores of Japan and how big a military role Tokyo was prepared to play under an expanded defense treaty with the United States.
"Japan alone cannot deal with the Indonesian situation. It is not only a matter of money. The issue may develop to a question of the U.S.-Japan defense treaty," Watanabe said.
Many foreign diplomats in Tokyo give high marks to the skill of their Japanese counterparts but believe Japan's own domestic problems are lessening the influence Japan can achieve on the international stage.
"The people at the foreign ministry are top notch and have avoided the scandals that have hit other ministries," a U.S. official said recently.
"But at the moment, because of Japan's domestic problems, they are mainly having to do damage control for their own country rather than helping further afield."