Page 2 of 2 More proof of the Rising
Sun's eclipse By Hisane Masaki
military spending. In its annual
report released last month, the respected
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI) said world military spending had risen by
37% in the past 10 years to $1.2 trillion - a
trend that was largely led by the US. The report
also said that the rising trend is unlikely to
taper off soon.
United Nations Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon has called on developed
nations to do their own part in a bid to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals
set in 2000, which call for, among other things,
halving the global number of people living in
extreme poverty by 2015. About a sixth of the
world's population still live in extreme poverty,
earning less than $1 per day, and nearly a seventh
of the world's population face starvation.
Japan's per capita ODA was 15th among the
22 major donors in 2005, at $102.9. This means
Japan's relatively large population has so far
made it possible for Japanese people to boast of
their nation's status as a leading ODA donor while
shouldering a lesser burden than their
counterparts in many other industrialized nations
on a per capita basis.
Although the
widening gap between rich and poor and the growing
ranks of "working poor" have been hotly debated in
Japan lately, many Japanese seem to be more
inward-looking than before, showing little
interest in the acute issues of global wealth gap
and poverty.
Japan has continued to slash
its ODA budget in the past decade amid its tight
fiscal condition. The government's general-account
budget for fiscal 2007, which started in April,
includes ODA spending of 729.3 billion yen (about
$5.9 billion), is down 4% from the fiscal 2006
budget. The fiscal 2007 ODA budget represents a
whopping 38% decline from the nearly 1.2 trillion
yen in fiscal 1997. ODA accounts for less than 1%
of the fiscal 2007 general account budget, which
totals about 83 trillion yen.
To be sure,
spending for public-works projects, widely seen as
a main target for budget reductions, has been axed
in recent years amid strong public criticism of
pork-barrel projects. But the size of cuts in
spending for public works projects made in the
past decade - 19% - is smaller than that for ODA
spending. ODA is not a vote-winner for
politicians, and resistance to spending cuts has
not been so strong.
To be sure, the volume
of ODA projects includes yen loans from such
special accounts as the Fiscal Investment and Loan
Program (FILP), widely dubbed as the "second
budget", and debt forgiveness, as well as spending
from the general-account budget. So cuts in ODA
spending in the general account budget do not
necessarily mean an overall reduction in the
volume of ODA projects.
But if ODA
spending is actually trimmed by between 2% and 4%
annually until fiscal 2011, as stipulated in the
Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy's 2006
report, it would be extremely difficult - and
perhaps impossible - for Japan to fulfill its
commitments.
The Liberal Democratic
Party's select commission on strengthening Japan's
diplomatic might, which was established last year
with former prime minister Yoshiro Mori as its
chairman, released a 10-point action plan last
month recommending that the nation expand ODA in
terms of both quantity and quality ahead of the
next Group of Eight summit to be held in the Lake
Toya hot-spring resort area of Hokkaido next July.
The year 2008 will have particular significance
for the development issue because it is just a
halfway point toward the 2015 target date for the
UN's Millennium Development Goals.
To be
sure, resource-poor Japan is also desperately
seeking strengthened relations with resource-rich
countries to ensure stable supplies of oil, gas
and other resources. But Japan, the
self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia,
cannot go China's way. Japan cannot turn a blind
eye to poor records on democracy and human rights
in many African countries. Japan has applied
strict criteria for aid provision to developing
countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere in the
world, with democracy and human-rights protection
being stipulated in the ODA Charter as basic
conditions.
Meanwhile, Japan has already
decided to stop offering fresh low-interest yen
loans to China before the 2008 Beijing Summer
Olympics. The yen loans account for the bulk of
Japanese ODA to China. Japanese ODA money began to
flow into China in the late 1970s, when China
embarked on a policy of reform and
openness.
But Japan is expected to continue
to provide technical cooperation in such areas as
environmental protection and human-resources
development. Yellow sand and acid rain originating
in China have affected parts of Japan.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
