Redefining Japan's role

The whirlwind tour of five Southeast Asian capitals by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi this week may be in keeping with a tradition for all newly elected Japanese leaders to make introductory courtesy calls on their neighbors, but this time around there is an added urgency behind the visit: It comes at a time when Japan needs to redefine its role in a rapidly changing Asia.

For much of the past 30 years, Japan has been the region's sole economic superpower. We leave it to historians to decide whether Japan has played that role effectively, but what is clear is that much of the economic development in East Asian countries has relied to a great extent on their relationship with Japan.

The rise and fall of many East Asian economies these last 30 years has depended on how Japan has been faring at the time. This is true for Southeast Asian countries even to the point of turning them into, for lack of a better term, Japan's economic satellites.

It was the kind of relationship that both Japan and its Southeast Asian partners were quite content, though not necessarily comfortable, to live with. It brought undeniable mutual benefits for their respective economies. The rapid development seen in some Southeast Asian countries in the 1980s and 1990s, when they became Asian "economic tigers", owed in no small measure to their close links with Japan.

Besides being the main provider of economic assistance, Japan has also been the main source of the private direct investment that underpinned Southeast Asia's rapid economic growth rates. Japan is the main market for much of Southeast Asia's commodities, and when industrial relocation became fashionable, Japan absorbed most of the industrial components and semi- finished goods produced in Southeast Asia. Japanese dollars (or yen) also fueled the growth in the tourism industries in these countries.

Now, at the start of the 21st century, the relationship between Japan and Southeast Asia is changing because circumstances too have changed.

Having grown impressively in the aftermath of World War II, Japan's economy has simply run out of steam. Japan has been struggling with an economic recession this past decade, but even if and when it does come out of it, few people expect to see Japan resuming the role of an economic catalyst for the rest of Asia.

Japan needs to redefine its role in the region because its economic decline coincides with the rapid rise of China as the new economic powerhouse in Asia. At the present rate, it won't be long before China takes over the role that Japan has played as the main engine for growth among Asian economies.

Granted, it will not be the same role that Japan played, but it would be futile to dismiss the growing influence of China on the economies of Asia. China is already absorbing most of the foreign direct investments that have come to the region, and with its entry into the World Trade Organization this year, it is going to be even more prominent in international trade.

The world is changing indeed, and the sooner countries in Asia adapt to these changes, the better. For Indonesia's and Southeast Asia's own purposes, this includes helping Japan to redefine its role in the region, given two contradictory trends: the decline of Japan's economy and the rise of China's.

The sun will never set in Japan, and Japan will continue to be an important economic partner for Southeast Asia for many years to come. But given the changing circumstances, our relationship can no longer be as intense, at least economically, as it has been these last three decades. Increasingly, this will become more of an equal and symmetrical partnership, compared to the present one which is dominated or even dictated by Japan.

Indonesia can and will continue to count on Tokyo's economic support for many years to come, but it should start lowering its expectations about Japan's ability to help, in times of need, like in the ongoing economic crisis and in future crises.

In the search for a new kind of partnership, Japan and Southeast Asian countries would do well to look at expanding their relationship beyond trade and the economy.

Short as the visit may be, the meetings between Koizumi and his Southeast Asian hosts would be an appropriate time to explore other aspects of our relations that to date have been neglected, such as cultural and political issues. Man does not live by bread alone, and international relations certainly cannot be nurtured simply by economic cooperation alone.