Marie Söderberg

Peace building and peace preservation are new key concepts in Japanese foreign aid policy. According to the revision of the ODA charter in 2003, the objective of Japan’s foreign aid is to contribute to the peace and development of the international community, and thereby to help ensure Japan’s own security and prosperity--“Japan aspires for world peace. Actively promoting the aforementioned effort with ODA” that Japan will carry out “even more strategically” in the future. Asia and especially East Asia is pointed out as a priority region. North Korea, with whom Japan has not yet normalised its relations, is one of Japan’s closest neighbours and would, from a logical point of view, then seem like an important starting point. However, when main Japanese aid agencies such as JICA (Japan International Co-operation Agency) and JBIC (Japan Bank of International Co-operation) are asked, no one works officially with aid to North Korea. The standard answer is that there is no aid to that country, besides some smaller amounts of Japanese humanitarian aid that are channelled through multilateral organisations. If Japan regards aid as one of its main tools for creating peace, why isn’t aid provided to North Korea? Aid is a very complex issue and not giving is often regarded as effective as giving, when it comes to getting concessions and changes in the recipients’ policy behaviour. It is used both as a carrot and a stick. Aid is always envisioned as something quite plausible, if North Korean policy behaviour is changed for the better according to Japanese judgement (so called positive aid sanction); but aid is never paid out and remains an illusion as long as it does not change (negative sanction). But the question for Japan is more complex than this. There are various domestic opinions and interest groups that have to be taken into consideration. The kidnapping issue (Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s) has lead to a considerable amount of anti-North Korean sentiment that makes it difficult for the Japanese government to disperse aid to North Korea. There is also foreign pressure at work; the US, Japan’s military ally, and other western countries as well have imposed economic sanctions on North Korea due to its withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. This also affects the Japanese position on the aid question. Keeping all these factors in mind, this paper questions if Japanese foreign aid is an effective tool to influence North Korean policy behaviour. Has it ever led to a change of behaviour? Has it contributed to peace and stability in the area in any way?

At the moment, very substantial reforms in the field of security are being undertaken in Japan. “The New National Defence Program Guidelines for 2005 and After”, as well as the “Midterm Defence Program Fiscal Year 2005-2009” both talk about a thorough restructuring of the Self Defence Forces to make them able to respond effectively to new threats, such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, as well as provide a more proactive Japanese policy with various initiatives to improve the international security environment. There is a definite strengthening of the Japanese-US security relation, where Japan is being asked to and is willing to take a bigger role. The declaration by North Korea that they now possess nuclear weapons is considered an imminent threat to Japan. This, in connection with the abduction issue (see below) is played up in Japanese mass media and is being used by certain groups to create changes in Japan’s defence posture. These are changes that the Japanese consider necessary to counter the larger threat in the long term, the rise of China. This paper will start with a short historic overview of the Japanese defence posture since World War II and give a short presentation of the kinds of threats Japan feels it is facing since September 11, 2001, and in the future. Then we will continue with Japanese-North Korean relations, and Japanese-Chinese relations. The recent strengthening of the Japanese-US security cooperation, and its implications for Japanese defence posture, as well as regional cooperation, will be covered. We will conclude with what these changes imply for Europe, as well as the role Europe could play in securing peace and stability in Asia.

The Chinese economy has been growing with an average of 10 per cent during the last 25 years. Walking in downtown Shanghai or Beijing, you can find some spots that are so luxurious that they are unrivalled in the world. China does not fit the picture of an average developing country. However, China is still a large recipient of foreign aid. Figures from OECD show that in 2003 the People’s Republic of China received USD 1.3 billion but ODA (Official Development Assistance), only amounts to 0.1 percent of Chinese GNP. The Chinese economic growth is certainly not dependent on foreign aid. At the government level in Beijing, ODA is seen as seed money, a window for contacts with foreign experts and technologies or as cheap financing. This paper will start by looking at China as a recipient. What are the processes of receiving aid, what do the Chinese want to get out of it and what are their priorities? This will be followed by a description of China’s main donor, Japan, where aid to China is a highly political and controversial question. After a short description of Nordic aid to China in general, we will look at Swedish aid and make case studies at the project level. In the conclusion, China as a recipient will be analysed, as well as Japan and Sweden as donors looking specifically at the concept of ownership, partnership and institutional change.

In Mongolia with 2.5 million inhabitants, population density is extremely low. It has a sever climate. Three quarters of the countries territory are grasslands, with the remaining area being deserts or mountain areas. This description does not depict Mongolia as a very attractive place, but somehow, however, it managed to attract considerable amounts of foreign aid workers. Today Mongolia is the fifth most aid-dependent country in the world. The high dependency rate on foreign aid, raises the question if this limits the Mongolian policy options. Is high aid dependency connected to weak ownership of ones own development? The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concepts of ownership and partnership as well as institutional change in the aid relation with Mongolia. We will start by looking at Mongolia as a recipient. This will be followed by Mongolian development strategies and shifts taking place over time as well as processes of receiving aid. Then we will also compare Japanese and Swedish aid to Mongolia in the field of human resource development. We will start by looking at Japan as a donor and its processes for giving aid to Mongolia. We will have a case study in the field of human resource development. Then we will look at Swedish policy and processes for giving aid to Mongolia and make a case study of Swedish aid for human resource development.

The development of newspapers in Japan and Sweden follow radically different paths. The newspapers fulfilled quite different roles in the two countries and were to an extensive degree reflecting the societies in which they were produced. This paper will start by giving a short overview of the development of the newspaper industry in Japan and in Sweden. A comparison will be made between the types of newspapers that were produced as well as to their content. We will then continue with a comparison of the popular press, the koshimbun in the Japanese case, a small format paper produced for a larger audience largely containing news of a sensational type as well as entertainment, with similar publication in Sweden. Special attention will also be given to the type of series novel that was published by the papers of both countries at the time.

The general aim of this paper is to review structural factors in Japan’s domestic and international context that are driving changes in Japan’s civil society. The opening up of the Japanese market and the globalization of the world economy, the information revolution and technology development, and legislative changes are some of the structural factors driving the changes. Finally we will se how two legislative changes, information disclosure as well as the NPO law are affecting Japanese foreign aid policy.

The world’s largest donor of ODA during the 1990s, Japan, is now making substantial cuts. ODA decreased by three per cent for the fiscal year ending March 2002 and for the coming year another ten percent cut will be made. This is an attempt to improve the situation of the Japanese state budget that after ten years of economic stagnation or recession is running with a huge deficit. Coupled with this we have the falling value of the yen, which further decreases what the recipients can expect to get from Japan. Under present conditions conventional Japanese ODA is not likely to play a major role in the development in Northeast Asia, at least not in the short term perspective. There is considerable space, however, for a number of initiatives from local levels and Japanese NGO:s. I will start by looking at what countries that have a chance of getting ODA. This will be followed by a general overview of Japanese ODA and what future trends will look like. Aid to Mongolia will be analysed and then aid to Japan’s largest recipient, namely China, and on-going changes there in. Finally I will conclude with suggestions for small scale measures that might enhance Japan’s image in the area.

The main part of Japanese aid is directed to Asia and there has been a strong emphasis on economic infrastructure, that is building railways, roads and ports etc. Recently however there is a refocusing towards environmental aid and “softer” types of aid such as poverty alleviation and social infrastructure. ODA that used to be based on the request from the recipient countries has become much more politicised, with Japan itself making country assistance plans indicating what fields they are willing to provide aid in. This is not always popular with the recipient government as in the case of China. In this case it has actually made Japan’s already complex relation with China even more complicated. The paper will start with a short historic review of Japanese ODA policy and the characteristics of Japanese aid. This will be followed by an explanation of the changes going on in Japanese foreign aid policy and finally we will see how this how this effect aid to China and the role of aid in the future Japan-China relationship.