One key foreign policy brought in by Japanese Prime Minister
Yasuo Fukuda was to step up economic aid for countries in the
Mekong River basin, designating 2008 the year of exchanges between
Japan and the nations of the Mekong region. Last Wednesday, Japan
hosted a ministerial meeting in Tokyo with the foreign ministers of
five Mekong region countries (Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia).
Japan's Mekong River diplomacy has produced a slew of new
initiatives in recent years. In November 2004, then Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi met with the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian
heads of state in their first summit, and they agreed to meet
regularly every year. Two years later, Tokyo brought up the idea of
a "crescent of freedom and prosperity", featuring aid for "emerging
democracies" in the region, starting with the three nations
mentioned above. In January 2007, Japan held a foreign
minister-level meeting with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and offered
to increase government funding for development aid. And on August
20 of the same year, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emphasized in a
policy address that Japan would pursue what it called "values
diplomacy" with members of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) and help the Mekong River countries advance the
rule of law and build up election mechanisms that reflect the
popular will.
At the foreign ministers' meeting with the five Mekong River
nations last week, Japan promised more economic aid to the region,
including a $20 million logistics network across the Mekong River
valley at the Japanese government's expense, in addition to
agreeing on the details of a $20 million aid package for the
impoverished border regions of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Tokyo
also called on Japanese enterprises to substantially increase their
investments in Mekong River countries.
Japanese media have said the government's accelerated diplomatic
and aid campaign in the Mekong River region is aimed at countering
China's fast growing influence there, because China pursues a
policy of "befriending, benefiting and reassuring its neighbors"
and pushes for regional economic cooperation while increasing aid
for the development of the region. These policies have allowed
China's fast growing economy to benefit its neighbors in the Mekong
River basin and helped enhance the region's prosperity and
stability. China's relations with these countries have entered
their best period in history. The situation has prompted some
Japanese media entities to cry: "China's influence in that region
has grown so much that it has surpassed Japan's."
As a matter of fact, competition and rivalry are not what the
relationship between China and Japan's activities in the region is
all about. There is a lot of room for the two countries to
cooperate in helping the Mekong River region develop. The region
faces a host of problems, including serious poverty, sorely
inadequate infrastructure, environmental deterioration and a
shortage of talent. It would greatly boost the region's development
and stability if China and Japan joined hands to help the nations
there solve these problems.
In fact, conditions are quite good today for China and Japan to
jointly contribute to the development of the Mekong region. Leaders
of both countries have expressed a willingness to deepen and expand
bilateral cooperation in various areas and push forward the
development of the strategic relationship of mutual benefit between
the two East Asian neighbors. They have also agreed the two
countries should cooperate in advancing the stability and
development of not only Asia, but the whole world as well.
Premier Wen Jiabao has this to say on the issue: "China and
Japan are two important countries in Asia and the world, and their
relations exert significant impact on the region and even the
world. We need to keep this in mind and step up bilateral
coordination and cooperation ... and be committed to revitalizing
Asia."
Prime Minister Fukuda has said Japan and China should cooperate
for the sake of stability and development in Asia and the whole
world.
To make this relationship of strategic mutual benefit concrete
and advance stability and development in Asia, China and Japan can
start by jointly advancing the stability and development of the
Mekong River region. To be more specific, the two countries can
cooperate in these areas:
First of all, they should join hands in helping uproot poverty
in the region. The two nations can beef up their economic aid
programs together and help the Mekong River region, where 50
million of the world's poorest people live, truly march toward
prosperity and leave poverty forever behind. This will in turn
contribute to the stability and development of that region, Asia
and the world as a whole.
Second, they can help end the region's lack of modern
infrastructure by working together in improving transportation,
power supply, telecommunications and energy production. For
transportation, China can help build the "north-south corridor" - a
2,000 km highway linking Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, and
the Thai capital city of Bangkok via Laos. Japan, meanwhile, can
aid the construction of the "east-west corridor" - a 1,500 km
highway stretching from the port city of Da Nang on Vietnam's east
coast through Laos and Thailand to Myanmar. The crisscrossing
corridors will serve as pivotal transportation arteries, powering
the development of regional economy; link the maritime members of
ASEAN to the east and south; extend westward to India and link the
Mekong River with the Ganges River; provide access to China in the
north and help speed up the integration of an emerging regional
economic sphere. Also, according to a report by Nikkei News on
April 29, Japan and China were discussing the possibility of
providing joint support for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to build
power plants.
Third, they should also join efforts to improve the region's
environment, which is deteriorating every day. As the economy
develops, the region is increasingly hurt by soil deterioration,
deforestation, ecological destruction, urban water shortages and
growing waste. For instance, all eco-preservation zones in the
region are threatened by human activities, which will lead to
irreversible damage to the local eco-system if no preventive action
is taken. Japan holds an edge over other Asian countries in
advanced environmental protection technology and financial power,
while the Chinese government has always been proactive in pushing
for more efforts to beef up environmental protection.
China and Japan can also help gear up the development of human
resources of the Mekong River nations by channeling their rich
manpower, advanced know-how and abundant material resources to the
region and by improving local communities' health and sanitation
standards.
The authors are researchers with China Institute of
Contemporary International Relations
(China Daily January 24, 2008)
