See also
- Japan–Vietnam relations
- Japan–Philippines relations
- Japan–Indonesian relations
- Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere – historic euphemism for the Japanese colonies in Southeast Asia
Japanese foreign policy toward Southeast Asia , the diverse region stretching from South Asia to the islands in the South Pacific Ocean, was in part defined by Japan's rapid rise in the 1980s as the dominant economic power in Asia. The decline in East-West and Sino-Soviet tensions during the 1980s suggested that economic rather than military power would determine regional leadership. During the decade, Japan displaced the United States as the largest provider of new business investment and economic aid in the region, although the United States market remained a major source of Asia-Pacific dynamism.
Following the rise in value of the yen relative to the US dollar in the late-1980s (after the Plaza Accord), Japan's role as a capital and technology exporter and as an increasingly significant importer of Asian manufactured goods made it the core economy of the Asia-Pacific region.
Japan remains the largest donor of economic aid to the region. [1]
From the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, Japan's relations with the rest of Asia were concerned mainly with promoting its far-flung, multiplying economic interests in the region through trade, technical assistance, and aid. Its main problems were the economic weakness and political instability of its trading partners and the growing apprehension of Asian leaders over Japan's "overpresence" in their region.
Japan began to normalize relations with its neighbors during the 1950s after a series of intermittent negotiations, which led to the payment of war reparations to Burma (now Myanmar), Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Thailand's reparations claims were not settled until 1963. Japan's reintegration into the Asian scene was also facilitated by its having joined the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific in December 1954 and by its attendance at the April 1955 Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. In the late 1950s, Japan made a limited beginning in its aid program. In 1958 it extended the equivalent of US$50 million in credits to India, the first Japanese loan of its kind in post-World War II years. As in subsequent cases involving India, as well as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Taiwan, Pakistan, and South Korea, these credits were rigidly bound to projects that promoted plant and equipment purchases from Japan. In 1960 Japan officially established the Institute of Asian Economic Affairs (renamed the Institute of Developing Economies in 1969) as the principal training center for its specialists in economic diplomacy.
In the early 1960s, the government adopted a more forward posture in seeking to establish contacts in Asia. In 1960 the Institute of Asian Economic Affairs was placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). In 1961 the government established the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund as a new lending agency. The following year the Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency made its debut.
By the mid-1960s, Japan's role had become highly visible in Asia as well as elsewhere in the world. In 1964 Japan became a full member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As economic and trade expansion burgeoned, leaders began to question the propriety and wisdom of what they variously described as "mere economism," an "export-first policy," and the "commercial motives of aid." They wanted to contribute more to the solution of the North-South problem, as they dubbed the issue—the tenuous relationship between the developed countries and the developing countries.
Efforts since the beginning of the 1970s to assume a leading role in promoting peace and stability in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, by providing economic aid and by offering to serve as a mediator in disputes, faced two constraints. Externally, there was fear in parts of Asia that Japan's systematic economic penetration into the region would eventually lead to something akin to its pre-World War II scheme to exploit Asian markets and materials. Internally, foreign policymakers were apprehensive that Japan's political involvement in the area in whatever capacity would almost certainly precipitate an anti-Japanese backlash and adversely affect its economic position.
After a reassessment of policy, the Japanese leadership appeared to have decided that more emphasis ought to be given to helping the developing countries of the region modernize their industrial bases to increase their self-reliance and economic resilience. In the late 1970s, Japan seemed to have decided that bilateral aid in the form of yen credits, tariff reductions, larger quota incentives for manufactured exports, and investments in processing industries, energy, agriculture, and education would be the focus of its aid programs in Asia.
By 1990 Japan's interaction with the vast majority of Asia-Pacific countries, especially its burgeoning economic exchanges, was multifaceted and increasingly important to the recipient countries. The developing countries of ASEAN (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand; Singapore was treated as a newly industrialized economy, or NIE) regarded Japan as critical to their development. Japan's aid to the ASEAN countries totaled US$1.9 billion in Japanese fiscal year (FY) 1988 versus about US$333 million for the United States during United States FY 1988. Japan was the number one foreign investor in the ASEAN countries, with cumulative investment as of March 1989 of about US$14.5 billion, more than twice that of the United States. Japan's share of total foreign investment in ASEAN countries in the same period ranged from 70 to 80 percent in Thailand to 20 percent in Indonesia.
In the early 1990s, the Japanese government was making a concerted effort to enhance its diplomatic stature, especially in Asia. Toshiki Kaifu's much publicized spring 1991 tour of five Southeast Asian nations—Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines—culminated in a May 3 major foreign policy address in Singapore, in which he called for a new partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and pledged that Japan would go beyond the purely economic sphere to seek an "appropriate role in the political sphere as a nation of peace." As evidence of this new role, Japan took an active part in promoting negotiations to resolve the Cambodian conflict.
The economy of Indonesia is the largest in Southeast Asia and is one of the emerging market economies. As a middle-income country and member of the G20, Indonesia is classified as a newly industrialized country. It is the 16th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the 7th largest in terms of GDP (PPP). Estimated at US$40 billion in 2019, Indonesia's Internet economy is expected to cross the US$130 billion mark by 2025. Indonesia depends on the domestic market and government budget spending and its ownership of state-owned enterprises. The administration of prices of a range of basic goods also plays a significant role in Indonesia's market economy. However, since the 1990s, the majority of the economy has been controlled by individual Indonesians and foreign companies.
Since independence, Indonesian foreign relations have adhered to a "free and active" foreign policy, seeking to play a role in regional affairs commensurate with its size and locativon but avoiding involvement in conflicts among major powers. During the Presidency of Sukarno, Indonesia's Foreign Relations were marked by engagement with other newly independent nations in Asia and Africa, as exemplified by the Bandung Conference, the subsequent foundation of the Non-Aligned Movement and a confrontational attitude towards Western powers, justified by a belief in the CONEFO and opposition to what Sukarno termed as NEKOLIM.
The foreign relations of Japan are handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is completely in the Northern Hemisphere. Timor-Leste and the southern portion of Indonesia are the only parts of Southeast Asia that are south of the Equator.
As of April 2022, Vietnam maintains diplomatic relationships with 189 UN member states, State of Palestine and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. In 2011 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, at the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, released an official statement about Vietnam's foreign policy and a section of the statement stated: "Vietnam is a friend and reliable partner of all countries in the international community, actively taking part in international and regional cooperation processes. Deepen, stabilize and sustain established international relations. Develop relations with countries and territories in the world, as well as international organizations, while showing: respect for each other's independence; sovereignty and territorial integrity; non-interference in each other's international affairs; non-use or threat of force; settlement of disagreements and disputes by means of peaceful negotiations; mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit."
ASEAN, officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia. The union has a total area of 4,522,518 km2 (1,746,154 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 668 million, containing approximately 8.5% of the world population in 2021. ASEAN generated a purchasing power parity (PPP) gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$10.2 trillion in 2022, constituting approximately 6.5% of global GDP (PPP).
The 1997 Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid, and worries of a meltdown quickly subsided.
The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) is a trade bloc agreement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations supporting local trade and manufacturing in all ASEAN countries, and facilitating economic integration with regional and international allies. It stands as one of the largest and most important free trade areas (FTA) in the world, and together with its network of dialogue partners, drove some of the world's largest multilateral forums and blocs, including Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, East Asia Summit and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The economy of Asia comprises about 4.7 billion people living in 50 different nations. Asia is the fastest growing economic region, as well as the largest continental economy by both GDP Nominal and PPP in the world. Moreover, Asia is the site of some of the world's longest modern economic booms, starting from the Japanese economic miracle (1950–1990), Miracle on the Han River (1961–1996) in South Korea, economic boom (1978–2013) in China, Tiger Cub Economies (1990–2020) in ASEAN, and economic boom in India (1991–present).
Nanyang is the Chinese term for the warmer and fertile geographical region along the southern coastal regions of China and beyond, otherwise known as the 'South Sea' or Southeast Asia. The term came into common usage in self-reference to the large ethnic Chinese migrant population in Southeast Asia, and is contrasted with Xiyang, which refers to the Western world, Dongyang, which refers to East Asian cultural sphere and occasionally including the Greater India, and Beiyang, which refers to Russia. The Chinese press regularly uses the term to refer to the region stretching from Yunnan Province to Singapore and from Myanmar (Burma) to Vietnam ; in addition, the term also refers to Brunei, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines in the region it encompasses.
The ASEAN Summit is a biannual meeting held by the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in relation to economic, political, security, and socio-cultural development of Southeast Asian countries. In addition, it serves as a prominent regional (Asia) and international (worldwide) conference, with world leaders attending its related summits and meetings to discuss various problems and global issues, strengthening co-operation, and making decisions. The summit has been praised by world leaders for its success and ability to produce results on a global level.
In the United States Government, the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs is part of the United States Department of State and is charged with advising the Secretary of State and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs on matters of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as dealing with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. relations with countries in that area. It is headed by the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, who reports to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
The Department of Foreign Affairs is the executive department of the Philippine government tasked to contribute to the enhancement of national security, protection of the territorial integrity and national sovereignty, to participate in the national endeavor of sustaining development and enhancing the Philippines' competitive edge, to protect the rights and promote the welfare of Filipinos overseas and to mobilize them as partners in national development, to project a positive image of the Philippines, and to increase international understanding of Philippine culture for mutually-beneficial relations with other countries.
The Fukuda Doctrine is based on a speech by Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda. In 1977, while on a tour of the ASEAN member states, the prime minister made a speech in Manila in which he articulated Japan's foreign policy that later became known as the Fukuda Doctrine.
The Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia or ERIA is an international organization established in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2008 by a formal agreement among Leaders of 16 countries in the East Asian region to conduct research activities and make policy recommendations for further economic integration in the East Asia. ERIA works very closely with both the ASEAN Secretariat and 16 Research Institutes to undertake and disseminate policy research under the three pillars, namely “Deepening Economic Integration”, ”Narrowing Development Gaps”, and “Sustainable Development” and provide analytical policy recommendations to Leaders and Ministers at their regional meetings. ERIA provides intellectual contributions to East Asian Community building and serves as a Sherpa international organization. ERIA Ranks 9th among the world's "Top International Economics Think Tanks" according to the 2020 Global Go To Think Tanks Index Report conducted by the University of Pennsylvania.
The Act East policy is an effort by the government of India to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia to bolster its standing as a regional power and a counterweight to the strategic influence of the People's Republic of China. Initiated in 1991, the Look East policy by Indian government marked a strategic shift in India’s perspective of the world. It was developed and enacted during the government of Prime Minister Narsimha Rao (1991–1996) and rigorously pursued by the successive administrations of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998–2004) and Manmohan Singh (2004–2014).
Canada-Asia relations are relations between Canada and Asian countries. These include bilateral relations between Canada and individual Asian states and multilateral relations through groups such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
The Enlargement of the Associationof Southeast Asian Nations is the process of expanding the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through the accession of new member states. This process began with ASEAN's five original members, who founded the association through the signing of the Bangkok Declaration in 1967. Since then, the ASEAN's membership has grown to ten with the accession of Cambodia in 1999.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is a free trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific nations of Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The 15 member countries account for about 30% of the world's population and 30% of global GDP, making it the largest trade bloc in history. Signed in November 2020, RCEP is the first free trade agreement among the largest economies in Asia, including China, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.
The Timor-Leste–Indonesia–Australia Growth Triangle (TIA-GT) is a combined initiative of the regions of Eastern Indonesia, Northern Australia, and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. This initiative aims to promote and foster economic growth through integrated economic development in the region that these nations reside in. The growth triangle was created in 2012, after a meeting was held by Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard and Timor-Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. The initiative aims to support economic, social, and cultural development primarily by attracting investment, developing manufacturing industries, enhancing human capital, and overall building a stronger cooperative relationship between the three countries involved. The initiative also aimed to accelerate the accession of Timor-Leste into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and to fulfill goals set by Timor-Leste's Strategic Development Plan, such as increasing the nation's economic prosperity and stability. The growth triangle is often misinterpreted as a free-trade zone; however, while there are elements of free trade agreements between Indonesia and Australia specifically, the terms of the growth triangle initiative are not directly linked to these free trade agreements, and the goals of the growth triangle do not specifically encompass free trade between the three nations.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain . Country Studies. Federal Research Division.
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