Japan plans to infuse US$30 billion in aid and investment from its public and private sectors into Africa over the next three years as it seeks to counter China’s growing influence.
Speaking via video link at the eighth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stressed Japan will grow together with Africa.
This is an increase from the US$20 billion that Japan promised African countries in 2019 and we essentially achieved it over the last three years, Kishida said.
The pledge is seen as an effort by Tokyo to differentiate itself from China, which has been criticized by the US and some Western nations for burdening African countries with loans.
Japan launched the TICAD in 1993, to revive interest in the continent and find raw materials for its industries and markets for its products. About a decade later, China began holding a rival event, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, at a time when Japan was turning inward as it sought to rebuild its struggling economy.
Japan has over time shifted the focus of its engagement with Africa from aid to private-sector-led investment.
Japan’s total trade with the continent is just a small fraction of Africa’s trade with China, according to the Japan External Trade Organization. In 2020, Africa’s exports to Japan were US$8.6 billion, while African imports from Japan were about US$7.9 billion.
As against this, China’s total two-way trade with the continent reached US$254 billion last year.
President Xi Jinping last year pledged US$40 billion in loans and investment for Africa and promised to grow imports from the continent to US$300 billion in three years.
Except during the triennial TICAD meetings, Japan is almost invisible in Africa, Seifudein Adem, a global affairs professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, said while Africa, too, is invisible in Japan.
Adem added, “China is also ahead in disseminating its ideas and values in Africa. While the global pandemic has widened the gap between Africa and Japan, the trend started earlier.”
He said Japan’s relative power has declined over the last three decades, as has its diplomatic and economic interest in Africa. However, the re-emergence of China as a global hegemon seems to be marginally stimulating Japan’s engagement with Africa and will continue to do so”, Adem noted.
At TICAD-8 in Tunis, which was attended by hundreds of heads of state and diplomats, Kishida, who spoke via video link, announced that Tokyo will help African countries with debt restructuring and extend loans worth around US$5 billion in coordination with the African Development Bank to promote sustainable African development.
This includes a special, newly created loan of up to US$1 billion for the purpose of advancing reforms that result in sound debt management and helping a resilient and sustainable Africa, the prime minister said.
Kishida also announced a further US$4 billion to promote Japan’s Green Growth Initiative. He also promised to contribute over US$1 billion to the Global Fund to help fight the spread of Covid-19 and other infectious diseases in Africa.
Kishida said Tokyo would work to ensure grain shipments to Africa amid a global shortage at a time when the international order is under threat after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Japan has aligned itself with the other Group of Seven countries in sanctioning Russia. However, the continent is divided over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with many countries taking a neutral stance while others oppose sanctions, which Russia has blamed for food shortages in Africa.
Adem of Doshisha University said Japan’s approach to African development is distinct with its emphasis on transparency and the high quality of its projects.
“But, from Japan’s point of view, the growing influence of China in Africa in the last two decades has made them all the more important to try to offset China’s unassailable competitive advantage,” Adem, the author of a forthcoming book on lessons for Africa from Japan and China, said.
However, he said Kishida has been more cautious in his diplomacy so far compared with previous leaders. Perhaps gone are the days of bold initiatives of the late Shinzo Abe, a friend of Africa, he said.
But Jonathan Berkshire Miller, a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, said: “Tokyo’s advantage will be to provide high-quality infrastructure, in line with the G20 priorities, and also enable African SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) through public-private partnerships.”
He said Japan has been making strides for decades on this through its TICAD process and evolving its assistance to the continent.
Miller said Japan views Africa in dynamic terms. However, Africa is changing and Japan is also realizing that its relations with the continent also need to balance the growing economic and geopolitical dimensions. Eventually, Japan would be advised to look more closely at building pre-existing partnerships with India and others in the region.
He said TICAD this year is of even more critical importance for African states to take ownership of partnerships and infrastructure cooperation. As the inflationary pressures and economic headwinds continue in recent months, the focus should be on partnership-based ventures that don’t saddle African states with unwieldy debt, Miller said.
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