Japan is rethinking the ways in which its official development assistance is provided to developing nations in order to promote its vision for a "free and open Indo-Pacific strategy." Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.
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Japan's net official development assistance (ODA) comes to around $10.4 billion (€8.5 billion) a year, representing 0.2 percent of gross national income and making Japan the fourth largest donor nation in the world and the largest in Asia.
Yet, Tokyo finds itself in competition with China, which has deeper pockets and fewer scruples about the governments that it chooses to support.
The Japanese government's decision to rethink its ODA policies is clearly in response to China's aggressive use of its economic might in the Asia-Pacific region, with Beijing providing vast sums to developing nations and announcing vast development plans, such as the "Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)." First outlined by Chinese President Xi Jinping, BRI puts China at the center of a growing network of transportation and trade links that will ultimately stretch to encompass more than 60 nations.
Concerned at Beijing's growing economic and political influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, Japan has forged new links with the United States, Australia and India – an informal grouping referred to as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – in order to provide a counterweight to China.
And there are many who say the pushback against Chinese efforts to exert more and more pressure over smaller countries is not a moment too soon.
How emerging donors are transforming the foreign aid industry
Since the global financial crisis, developed countries have been tightening their foreign aid spending. But BRICS countries and other rising economies are expanding the funding pie, a new report has found.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/K. Fukuhara
New players in development assistance
Despite signs of slowing growth, the scope and scale of emerging donor activity has increased markedly over the past few years. According to a study conducted by global development platform Devex, emerging donors could contribute close to 20 percent of total foreign aid by 2020, up from an estimated 7-10 percent in 2012.
Image: Reuters/D. Siddiqui
The rising dragon
With a 2013 foreign aid budget of $7.1 billion (5.93 billion euros), China is not only by far the biggest emerging donor, it's also the sixth-largest in the world. Reaching 121 countries, Beijing’s program has a clear Africa focus and is a key element of its diplomatic and economic push into the continent. Almost half of China’s overall foreign aid goes towards infrastructure projects.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/O. Berg
Sustained aid growth?
The Devex report, which surveyed nearly 1,000 development executives, says emerging donors will continue to boost their foreign aid spending over the next decade. "We are taking efforts to increase steadily the size of our ODA [Official Development Assistance] for several years," the deputy government director for ODA South Korea said in the report.
United Arab Emirates on the rise
In 2013, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recorded the largest jump in its development assistance among all donor governments — a staggering 435 percent increase. The bulk of UAE's foreign aid goes to majority-Muslim countries, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. The Gulf State is also a major donor to humanitarian crises as far as the Philippines and the Central African Republic.
Image: Imago/imagebroker
Donor profiles: Russia and Turkey
Russia's re-emerging foreign aid program focuses on health and education and is considered a by-product of its familiarity with the medical and school systems of its development partners in the former Soviet Union. However, Western sanctions over Ukraine begin to take their toll. In Turkey, things look brighter: Ankara's ODA rose more than threefold to $3.4 billion between 2010 and 2014 alone.
Changing of the guards?
The Devex report looked at funding strategies and priorities of eight emerging donors: the BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as well as South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. At the 2017 BRICS meeting last month in China, the emerging donors urged "developed countries to honor their Official Development Assistance commitments in time and in full."
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMAPRESS.com
Focus close to home
Even as they contend that their foreign aid programs have global ambitions, emerging donors generally direct the vast majority of their funding toward neighboring regions. India, UAE and South Africa have a particularly sharp focus on their home regions. China, Russia and South Korea are the exceptions to this trend.
Peace building, democracy and governance
Albeit having considerably lower aid flows than its peers, South Africa has been aggressively positioning itself as an emerging donor over the past decade, directing nearly all its budget to the continent — 70 percent alone goes towards the Southern part of Africa. According to the Devex report, priorities are peace building, democracy and governance as well as humanitarian assistance.
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Strategic objectives
"In comparison with Japan and the ODA budgets of other countries, Beijing clearly uses its aid budget for its own narrow strategic objectives," said Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University.
"Japan has traditionally believed its aid should be spent on programs that help people in less-developed parts of the world to improve their standards of living," he told DW.
According to Japan's foreign ministry, Tokyo's primary development goals include eradicating poverty, ensuring "zero hunger," promoting health, education, gender equality and providing water, sanitation, clean energy, infrastructure and employment opportunities.
In contrast, Shimada claims, Beijing's foreign aid has one objective – to create jobs for Chinese corporations and to advance its own "narrow global ambitions." He points out that China does not release statistics on the foreign aid that it provides as the figures are considered state secrets. Estimates suggest that China disbursed $354.3 billion in the 15 years up to 2014, which comes close to rivalling the $394.6 billion the US provided in the same time period.
The data suggests that China actually spends more on ODA than the US on an annual basis, while it is estimated that Beijing is financially supporting more than 4,300 projects in 140 countries around the world.
Shimada points out that the three largest recipients of Chinese assistance in the 15 years to 2014 were Pakistan, Russia and Angola. It is no coincidence, he stresses, that China is very keen to obtain natural resources from Russia's Far East region, that Angola has large amounts of natural resources and acts as a foothold onto the entire African continent, and that Pakistan is a fierce rival of India, with which Beijing is also locked in a dispute over territories along their frontier.
And Beijing is not above exploiting a recipient nation's situation, he claimed.
"Sri Lanka took out loans from Beijing but was not able to pay them back within the time frame, so China has taken out a 99-year lease on a strategic port in Sri Lanka as repayment, turning the island into one of its strategic bases in the region – what Beijing calls its 'string of pearls' policy," Shimada said.
Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at the Japan campus of Temple University, agrees that China is using its economic strength to Japan's disadvantage and that it is "trying to woo support in countries where Japan has previously had a long-standing relationship."
Myanmar is one example of a nation where Tokyo has long supported infrastructure, health and development projects, said Kingston, although it has been harder to extend unequivocal support for the regime since news about atrocities against the Rohingya minority started to come to light.
"For Japan, that makes providing aid to the regime very delicate," he said. "China, on the other hand, simply does not care about human rights issues and has stepped in."
It is a similar story in a number of other nations in Southeast Asia, he points out, including Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia.
"This money is not strictly 'aid,' but the recipient nation does not care what it is called," Kingston said. "And we are also seeing Chinese companies bidding for projects in Africa at a very low cost and essentially making a loss because it helps to keep Chinese companies in business at the same time as increasing China's profile and presence in a nation."
Kingston says both Japan and China can be considered to have "ulterior motives" in the ways in which they use their ODA budgets, although there are some stark differences.
"Japan still has principles on how development money is spent, and if it helps Japanese companies win contracts, it's a bonus," he said. "China, on the other hand, seems to care less about doing good in a recipient country and is primarily motivated by promoting domestic companies' operations abroad and Beijing's strategic interests."
Shimada believes it is high time that Japan adopted similar tactics and provides more assistance to allied countries.
"Frankly speaking, our power is quite limited, so Japan should focus its efforts on assisting countries in the Asia-Pacific region," he said. "But we should immediately stop providing ODA to countries that have any sort of trade with North Korea and those that are siding with China in the region."
Money from China and Africa's renaissance on rails
To improve its overseas transport infrastructure, China is investing heavily in Africa. The railroad is celebrating a comeback on the continent.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Kenya opens Madaraka Express railway
The Chinese-built railway linking the port city of Mombasa with the capital, Nairobi, is Kenya's biggest infrastructure project since independence. The passegner train, dubbed the Madaraka (Freedom) Express, can carry 1,260 passengers and replaces the so-called "Lunatic Express" - a railway built by colonial Britain more than a century ago, which was known for lengthy delays and breakdowns.
Image: Reuters/Stringer
Connecting East Africa
About 25,000 Kenyan and 3,000 Chinese workers took part in the construction of the 472-kilometer route between Mombasa and Nairobi. China financed about 90 percent of the construction costs, while the Kenyan government is providing the remaining 20 percent. The newly opened railway is the first phase of a project to connect Kenya's landlocked neighbors Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan to Mombasa.
Image: Reuters/N. Khamis
The fast train from Abuja to Kaduna
Since July, 175 kilometers (116 miles) of rail have connected Nigeria's capital, Abuja, to Kaduna state in the north. It cost about 800 million euros ($896.5) to construct. The Export-Import Bank of China provided approximately 450 million euros.
Image: DW/U. Musa
The head of state on tracks
Nigerian President Muhmmadu Buhari was a special guest on the new train's maiden trip. A ticket for the two-hour, 40-minute journey goes for the equivalent of 3 euros for economy class and 4.25 euros for first class.
Image: DW/U. Musa
City rail in Addis Ababa
The first light rail line in Ethiopia's capital went active in 2015. It was built by the China Railway Group - also with funding from China EximBank. The Chinese will be involved in the operation and maintenance of the light rail system until 2020. Then the Ethiopian Railways Corporation should take over.
Image: picture-alliance/dpaMarthe van der Wolf
Railway museum in Livingstone
Rail transport in Africa goes back a long way. In 1856 the route between Alexandria and Cairo was opened. These steam engines are said to have been running from the beginning of the 20th century to 1976 in Zambia. They are exhibited at the Railway Museum in Livingstone.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. de Sakutin
Dilapidation at the end of colonial rule
A number of railway lines were constructed by the colonialists in Africa. The trains transported raw materials to the coast, where they would then be shipped to Europe. Many of these routes are dilapidated. The relics in the photo belong to the original railway line between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, built in 1914 but replaced in 1980.
Image: picture-alliance/Ardea/K. Terblanche
Africa's rail network
In a 2015 statement, the African Development Bank emphasized the importance of the railway for the continent. It allows for the cheap transportation of goods and relieves urban congestion, according to the bank. The report also criticizes the poor condition of the rail networks. They mainly stretch across the north and the south and are often not linked to each other.
Will closed stations be reopened?
As economies grow in many African countries, a new emphasis has been placed on transport improvements. If China and other backers continue to invest, deserted train stations such as this one in Addis Ababa could function again.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Medina
Going all the way in South Africa
The Gautrain regional rail network connects Pretoria and Johannesburg with the largest airport in Africa. It is to be expanded from the current 80 to 230 kilometers in the next 20 years. With about 21,000 kilometers of track, South Africa has by far the largest rail network in the continent. Sudan has 7,300 kilometers, and Egypt has 5,100 kilometers.
Image: imago/ZUMA Press
Fast trains from France in Tangier
The continent's highest-speed trains are planned in the north. The first of 12 French TGV trains were delivered last June. The journey between Tangier and Casablanca should take 2 hours 10 minutes at a speed of up to 320 kilometers per hour, instead of the now 4 hours 45 minutes. The line will later extend to Algeria and Tunisia.
