Japan's high-profile "aid to Africa" entrains a lot of "smuggled goods"

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ( right) delivers a video message at the opening ceremony of the 8th African Development Conference (ACD) at the Prime Minister's residence in Japan on August 27. Courtesy of Visual China

From August 27 to 28, the 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) was held in Tunis, Africa, which was called the African Development Conference by the Japanese side, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attended the opening ceremony online and delivered a speech. In his speech, Kishida Fumio announced on behalf of the Japanese government that Japan will invest $30 billion in Africa through both government and private channels in a three-year period from 2023 to 2025, highlighting the importance the Japanese government attaches to the development of the African market.

Kishida was scheduled to visit Africa and the Middle East at the end of August, but was forced to attend the African Development Conference by video due to an accidental infection with the new crown virus. In his opening remarks, he said that in order to support Africa's economic development, the Japanese government will provide up to $5 billion in yen loans to Africa to promote infrastructure construction and other projects aimed at improving the quality of life of people; At the same time, it will train 300,000 talents for Africa in a wide range of fields such as industry, health care, education and agriculture in the next three years. "To achieve peace and prosperity in Africa and the world, we must maintain and strengthen a free and open international order based on rules," Kishida said. In order to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific and strengthen the role of uncommunicative mechanisms, including Security Council reform, Japan and Africa must strengthen cooperation at multiple levels. ”

For the Kishida government's high-profile "aid to Africa", the Japanese media believe that there are many "private goods" behind this move. First, the Japanese government has been flaunting so-called "high-quality infrastructure investments," the essence of which is to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative. Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun published an editorial on August 30 titled "The African Development Conference should be used to promote high-quality infrastructure construction," saying that Japan has not done enough compared with China, and that Japan's current investment in the non-direct economy is only equivalent to 10% of China's. Agence France-Presse also reported on August 27 that Japan has pledged tens of billions of dollars to Africa, aiming to counter China's growing influence in Africa. Second, the Japanese government regards Africa as an important "ticket warehouse" to support Japan's "normalization." The Yomiuri Shimbun reported on August 30 that in the current UN framework, each country has 1 vote, and the combined influence of the 54 countries on the African continent cannot be ignored. For Japan, which aspires to seek a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, it is crucial to develop Japan-Africa relations.

The African Development Conference was first convened in 1993 and was initiated by Japan after the end of the Cold War. In an interview with the Asahi Shirbun, a Japanese expert on African issues and professor at Ritsumeikan University, Keiichi Shirato said that the background of the establishment of the African Development Conference is a practical exploration in which Japan seeks to occupy a place in the new international order in the process of ending the Cold War pattern. Keiichi Shirato believes that there were three main reasons why Japan led the creation of the African Development Conference mechanism at that time: First, after the end of the Cold War, the countries of the world ignored the development and development of Africa, and Japan wanted to fill the gap; The second is to guide African countries to lead their own development process with the help of Japan, breaking the situation in which Africa has been controlled by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War; Third, Japan has tried to break the consistent follow-up diplomacy toward the United States since World War II and explore independent diplomacy with its own characteristics.

For a long time, the Japanese government has been optimistic about Africa's development potential. During the Abe administration, Japan further improved the mechanism of the African Development Conference. In 2013, the 5th African Development Conference, held in Yokohama, changed the original five-year meeting mechanism to a three-yearly meeting. In 2016, at the 6th African Development Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe actively "peddled" his "free and open Indo-Pacific" strategy to African countries, saying that Africa needed to form a partnership with Japan. In fact, this year Kishida announced a $30 billion investment in Africa, an equally large investment as early as the Abe administration in 2016, when the foreign minister was Kishida Fumio. At the 7th African Development Conference held in 2019, Shinzo Abe, who attended the meeting for the third time, did not announce the specific amount of investment in Africa, and at that time, some experts pointed out that Japanese private enterprises lacked motivation to invest in Africa.

Contrary to the Japanese government's high-profile commitment to investment assistance to Africa, the enthusiasm of Japanese private enterprises for investment in Africa has continued to decline in recent years. According to a survey by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Japanese companies invested $12 billion in Africa at the end of 2013, but by the end of 2020 that figure had fallen to $4.8 billion, slipping to 48th in the ranking of all countries investing in Africa.

Also shrinking is the size of people at the summit level who participate in the African Development Conference. At the 7th session held in Yokohama, Japan, in 2019, heads of state from 42 countries in Africa participated, but only about 20 people at the same level attended this year, and the heads of state of South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and other major countries did not attend. Japan's Kyodo News Agency quoted the staff of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) as saying that the heads of state of Many African countries, after knowing that Kishida Fumio could not attend the meeting, they expressed that they would not attend the meeting, resulting in a very cold atmosphere at the meeting.

In addition, although Kishida Tried to hype the so-called "China Debt Trap" in his opening speech, declaring that Japan would develop with Africa and "different" from China's approach, his approach was "punched in the face" by Japanese journalists. On August 29, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun published a field report by a special Tunisian reporter, which proved that the so-called "China debt trap" was false propaganda by western media. The article reported that Chinese investment in Africa is widely welcomed by African countries. The article quoted the survey results of the African research institute "African Barometer" to report that public opinion surveys conducted in 34 African countries show that 63% of the people have a positive evaluation of China in the political and economic impact on their own countries, much higher than the United States, Britain, France and other Western countries. The article argues that in addition to China's support for the independence of African countries from European colonies in history, factors such as giving enough attention to African countries during the Cold War and never interfering in the internal affairs of African countries have enabled China to win the trust of African countries. As a diplomat from an African country told reporters, "As long as you come to Africa with sincerity, the African people welcome it.".

Tokyo, August 31 (Xinhua) --

Jia Yimeng, a correspondent of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network in Japan

Source: China Youth Daily