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Japan Plays Uncle Tsam to Developing World
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16784 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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Date : |
9 / 1989 |
2,171 Words |
| Author
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Julian M. Weiss
Julian M. Weiss has written extensively on business and
international trade and has traveled widely throughout Asia.
His most recent book is The Asian Century (Facts on file,
1989). |
Japan's emergence on the international scene has hit the world with tsunami-like force.
Strides in high technology, an ongoing export machine, and construction of new factories abroad have characterized Japan's activities to date. Now, the economic superpower is poised for another leapfrog over the West. In 1988, Japan surpassed the United States as the world's leading supplier of foreign assistance to developing and underdeveloped countries. The northeast Asian nation spent $10 billion--a hefty one-third increase over the previous year--compared to America's $8.8 billion (an amount that did not increase U.S. funding levels for 1987).
This year, Japan's foreign aid will top $11 billion.
The latest evidence of Japan's serious efforts to become a true world power--not merely a passive observer--has come through extensions of her official development assistance (ODA) program. Yet, questions remain about Japan's ability to master the delicate craft of what is euphemistically termed "foreign aid."
In the past decade, Tokyo saw its allotments of ODA moneys rise fivefold. (Few other countries even came close. The United States, for example, increased its foreign aid spending by twofold.) And, according to Tetsuma Fujikawa, a director of international projects for the Ministry of Finance, future increases will be equally substantial. "We look upon ODA as a way to keep up flows of world trade," he explains, "and greater trade will help Japan."
The
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