Japan brings balance to Central
Asia By Christopher Len
Amid talk of revival of the Great Game in
Central Asia, Japan's role has received little
attention among security analysts despite being
present in the region since 1992.
By 2004,
Japan had given 260 billion yen (more than US$2
billion) to support economic and social
development to the Central Asian states. Japan's
focus on long-term development aid to Central
Asia
has allowed Tokyo to develop its reputation as a
partner to Central Asian republics. This is in
contrast to the other contenders in the region
whose key motivation is commonly perceived to be
the exploitation of the region's vast oil and gas
resources.
Japan added a new dimension to
its engagement with Central Asia with the
formation of the Central Asia Plus Japan
(including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and
Turkmenistan) initiative in August 2004. While
low-key compared with the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO - China, Russia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), Japan
through the Central Asia Plus Japan initiative is
likely to play an increasingly significant
geopolitical role, not just in Central Asia but
also in Eurasia. An important question is how
Japan's new regional initiative will impact the
SCO, which is largely considered the de facto
regional organization in Central Asia.
Japan's entry into Central
Asia The end of the Cold War created new
opportunities for Japan to engage with the
post-Soviet independent states, in particular
Russia. The availability of abundant energy
resources from the nearby Russian Far East and the
return of the Kuril Islands, referred to by the
Japanese as the Northern Territories, were
subjects closest to Japan's interests. However,
Japan tied the issue of energy investment in the
Russian Far East to the return of the disputed
islands. This led to frosty ties between Moscow
and Tokyo, prompting the latter to focus its
attention increasingly toward Central Asia
instead.
Central Asia was an attractive
option for a number of reasons. Japan was
attracted to the region's oil and gas deposits.
Aid to Central Asia was also intended to show the
Russians that more funds could be forthcoming if
they return the disputed islands to Japan. In
addition, there were doubts over Russia's
uncertain future outlook, the aging infrastructure
and difficulty in penetrating Russia's highly
protected energy industry.
On a secondary
level, Japan wanted to steer the new republics
toward secular governments as rising Islamic
fundamentalism in Central Asia could spill over
into China's Xinjiang region, which in turn could
destabilize the rest of China. Japanese government
officials also romanticized about links between
Japan and the people of Central Asia. Japan's then
foreign minister, Michio Watanabe, reportedly
found it difficult to distinguish between Japanese
and the locals in Central Asia on his first trip
to the region. The Japanese also reminisced about
the 60,000 Japanese war prisoners deported to
Central Asia by Josef Stalin when the Red Army
invaded Manchuria in 1945.
Japan's
Eurasian diplomacy Such rationale drove
Japanese engagement in the region from 1992 up to
1997. After 1997, Japan's Central Asia strategy
underwent reassessment. By 1997, Japan still
lacked commercial progress in the region despite
having good diplomatic relations with the Central
Asian regimes. The feasibility of Central Asia as
an alternative to Russia and the Middle East in
meeting Japan's energy security needs appeared to
be overestimated by the Japanese and exaggerated
by the oil-and-gas-rich Central Asian states. In
addition, talks with Russia over the disputed
territories yielded no result. This led to
domestic criticism that Japan lacked a clearly
defined strategy in engaging Central Asia.
Despite the policy setback, it became
increasingly clear that Central Asia is a region
of growing geopolitical significance and that
Japan's participation adds to the region's
stability. In 1997, Koji Watanabe, executive
adviser to the Japan Federation of Economic
Organizations (Keidanren) and former Japanese
ambassador to Russia, stated in an interview that
Japan should help the Central Asian states develop
because these states play a role as a buffer
region in the Eurasian continent for the
maintenance of peace.
Once Japan defined a
clear purpose in Central Asia, it devised a
sophisticated response marking the beginning of a
new diplomatic phase in Central Asia. In a speech
delivered to the Japan Association of Corporate
Executives, then-prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
outlined a new Eurasian foreign policy. Under the
"Eurasian diplomacy", Japan would help toward
regional integration within Central Asia with
plans to improve communication, transport and
energy networks in the region. While acknowledging
the expanding influence of Central Asian and
Caspian oil and gas resources on the world energy
supply, Hashimoto stated that Japan's economic
engagement with Central Asia would be based on the
development of the energy sector, not as an end
for Japan, but as a way to foster prosperity in
the region.
In sum, Japan understood that
with Central Asia's small population, vast
distances away from viable markets and landlocked
geography, its republics needed to deepen their
level of cooperation with one another so as to
create a local regional market economy. This would
help lessen dependence on Central Asia's export
economy and provide more incentives for foreign
companies to enter the region because of the
bigger markets available for foreign investment.
Such a regional blueprint would thus generate
greater stability and wealth within the region.
The Central Asian republics responded
positively to this new initiative with visits by
top-ranking officials to Japan in 1998 and 1999.
The Japanese government and business delegations
also returned to the region with a new sense of
purpose. Reflecting Japan's stability-oriented
development goals in the region and its long-term
commitment, they focused on long-term investment
and loans to develop Central Asia's infrastructure
network.
The Central Asian governments on
their part acknowledged Japan's Eurasian strategy
for modernization. Kyrgyzstan's then-president
Askar Akayev highlighted Japanese policies as an
example of how outsiders could first help local
economic reintegration before focusing on the
exploitation of the resources found in the region.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev declared
that the revitalization of the "Silk Road"
required first deeper cooperation of the countries
in the region before pursuing extended engagement
with the outside world. Uzbek President Islam
Karimov in turn held Japan up as a role model,
noting how resource-poor Japan developed
successfully because the needs of the community
were placed before those of the individual.
Central Asia Plus
Japan Confident that bilateral relations
with the respective Central Asian states had
reached a comfortable level, Japan introduced the
Central Asia Plus Japan initiative. The idea of
the initiative is to shift the focus from
bilateral ties between Japan and the individual
states to greater dialogue among the Central Asian
states themselves with Japan as a facilitator.
Apart from members, Turkmenistan, maintaining its
stance on positive neutrality, would also attend
these meetings, although not as a full member.
In the inaugural meeting held in
Kazakhstan in August 2004, participants discussed
the importance of intra-regional cooperation
aiming for stability and development of the
Central Asian region as a whole and also
cooperation between Japan and Central Asia in the
international arena. It was also stated that the
need for development of market economies and
democratization will be stressed through future
dialogues. This was followed up by another meeting
during the 12th Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Ministerial Council
meeting in Bulgaria in December 2004 and another
meeting in Tashkent last March.
After the
May 13 Andijan violence in Uzbekistan, US-Uzbek
relations soured and the latter has swung toward
the SCO as a means to safeguard its regime and
reassert its legitimacy. It was reported that in
response to the event, the Japanese government was
considering holding a foreign ministerial
conference involving Japan and the five Central
Asian states in the summer of 2005 to boost the
region's political stability through expanded
Japanese development assistance. However, this was
apparently shelved because of the snap elections
in Japan in September. It is most likely that
Japan will continue in its engagement with the
Uzbek regime since it is precisely such political
and social instability that the Japanese
government would like to address in the
region.
Japan, SCO share complementary
objectives Japan's role actually
complements the SCO's in significant ways. Central
Asian regimes are likely to see synergy in their
engagement with both. Japan could assist with the
region's modernization through its economic and
development aid, while the SCO could be relied on
to coordinate and address the region's security
threats, especially terrorism, organized crime and
violent Islamist movements.
Another area
of converging interests is the focus in deepening
Central Asian regional integration. Russia and
China share the same regionalization and
development goals for Central Asia as with Japan.
In working for a stable Central Asia, all parties
are attempting to bring Afghanistan into the
Central Asian fold as inclusion of Afghanistan
would create a potentially larger market in the
Central Asian region, while instability in
Afghanistan could impact the region negatively.
November was especially significant for
Afghanistan as it was admitted into the Central
Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC)
grouping organized by the Japan-led Asian
Development Bank and because the SCO-Afghanistan
Contact Group was established.
Japan as
a mitigating force to the SCO While the
objectives of the Central Asia Plus Japan
initiative complement those of the SCO member
states, Japan also plays a positive role in the
region as a balancing force against the SCO. To be
realistic, however, it is unlikely that the
initiative will ever have the same weight and
presence as the SCO. Since China and Russia are
geographically part of the region sharing borders
with Central Asian states, their level of
engagement is more intrinsic. Furthermore, Russia
and China share with the Central Asian leaders the
same threats and vulnerabilities with regards to
terrorism and violent Islamist movements. In
addition, the two giant neighbors have been the
most outspoken supporters of the authoritarian
Central Asian regimes.
Nevertheless,
Japan, through the Central Asia Plus Japan
initiative, mitigates the aspirations of the SCO.
Its presence in the region helps dilute the
influence of the SCO, a result that the Central
Asian republics, the United States and Europe all
prefer. Japan's role is particularly important in
light of the SCO's growing confidence, as
reflected in the recent inclusion of India,
Pakistan and Iran as SCO observers (Mongolia
attained observer status in 2004) and the
establishment of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact
Group.
The entry of these observers and
the establishment of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact
Group mean that the Central Asian region is now
surrounded by SCO or SCO-friendly states. This in
essence fences the Central Asian states into the
SCO framework. Such encirclement, if successful,
is likely to make the SCO the dominant
multilateral organization in Central Asia.
More important, the inclusion of these
members suggests that the SCO is gradually
expanding beyond Central Asia and into the wider
Eurasian region. Such a development would have
great geopolitical implications since the SCO
grouping has the potential to develop into a
formidable energy bloc within Eurasia with oil and
gas from Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan flowing into or through Russia, China
and India.
Japan's ability to engage and
influence the individual SCO-associated states,
namely the Central Asian states and Afghanistan,
thus takes on growing geopolitical significance.
As an ally of the West and for the sake of its own
energy security needs, Tokyo would not allow the
SCO to have a stranglehold over Eurasia's energy
resources.
Conclusion Japan's
foreign policy is directed toward three
considerations: US-Japanese relations, Japan's
international standing and prestige through the
promotion of multilateral institutions of
cooperation, and relations with its two
great-power neighbors, Russia and China. In this
sense, the new Eurasian initiative complements all
three objectives clearly.
In essence,
Central Asian states are more interested in
looking after their own needs than those of any
regional organization, including the SCO. Japan's
presence is welcome because of its use of economic
and aid linkages rather than economic or security
leverage when dealing with them.
Interestingly, Japan's activities in
Central Asia reveal a subtle foreign policy that
is able to accommodate both Eastern and Western
value systems. In the eyes of the Central Asian
regimes, Japan has come to represent a viable
Asian role model and partner for their
modernization program. For the West, Japan has
come to represent its liberal-democratic values,
as opposed to China and Russia, which insist on an
indigenous - and usually authoritarian - approach
toward government. While the Central Asian regimes
and the West may not see eye-to-eye on a range of
issues, both nevertheless recognize Japan's
contribution to the region, especially because of
Japan's potential to counterbalance Russian and
Chinese influence in Central Asia.
As US
influence diminishes within the Central Asian
region and the SCO consolidates and expands its
membership, Japan will have an increasing
geopolitical role to play within Eurasia as a
counterbalance to the SCO. Its engagement in
Central Asia will ultimately sway the geopolitical
direction of Eurasia depending on how successful
it is in influencing the Central Asian states,
including Afghanistan, to its way of thinking.
Published with permission of thePower and Interest News
Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into
various conflicts, regions and points of interest
around the globe. All comments should be directed
tocontent@pinr.com
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