Don't Ignore the Japan-Africa Connection

             A lot of attention has been given to China’s involvement in Africa, and of course the ongoing involvement of Europe’s former colonial powers continues to be scrutinized. However, the longstanding connection between Japan and Africa has not received sufficient attention despite recent significant Japanese involvement on the continent.

            We know the Arabs and Europeans have had a long history of contact with Africans, and the Chinese have had quite an extended contact as well. But the Japanese have known Africans for much longer than one might have suspected. As it turns out, the Japanese have had contact with Africans since the 16^th century. In fact, the first African people who came to Japan were believed by scholars to be Mozambican. They reportedly reached Japan in 1546 as shipmates or slaves who served Portuguese captain Jorge Álvares.

According to Professor Jun Morikawa of Rakuno Gakuen University, speaking on emerging trends in Japanese-African relations, Africa has traditionally not been all that important to Japan, except for South Africa. The rest of the continent has typically only accounted for 1-2% of Japan’s trade.

“Japan has traditionally seen Africa as part of the European sphere of influence and has tended not to want to rock the boat, but merely to focus on trade within the existing colonial system. Japan was granted ‘honorary white’ status in South Africa in the 1930s, so Japanese had no problems with the existing system,” Morikawa said.

He stated that Japan’s trade relations with Africa started developing significantly during World War I, with Cairo and Cape Town being the main trading partners. In the interwar period, there was substantial trade between Japan (particularly the Osaka area) and Uganda and Egypt, both of which supplied cotton for the booming Japanese textile industry, while Japan supplied light manufactured goods.

Morikawa explained that Africa became a fast-growing market for Japan in the 1930s, causing some friction with traditional trading partners whose exports were being displaced, such as the UK and Australia. Japan switched its wool supply from Australia to South Africa in 1937. Following WWII, South African forces fought on the U.S. side in the Korean War (using Japan as a forward base), and with Japan becoming an ally of the U.S. as well after its independence in 1952, Japan and South Africa therefore indirectly became allies.

Once Japan started focusing on high tech industries from the 1970s onwards, rare metals from South Africa also became an important import, along with cobalt from the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Japan’s resources are limited, so it has focused on South Africa, Egypt and parts of Uganda. It has found the going difficult in Francophone parts of Africa, except for the former Belgian Congo (currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and remains highly selective in its engagement with Africa to this day.

 The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) launched the Africa Society in 1958, and the Diet Library started collecting books on Africa at around the same time. MoFA’s Africa Section was established in 1961, and Morikawa said the Ministry tends to present Japan’s engagement with Africa as having started in this period, ignoring the relations between Japan and Africa prior to that date.

Following the oil shock in the early 1970s, Japan became concerned that mineral resources might be the next shock. A large Japanese mission was dispatched to Africa in about 1970 and tried to develop a big copper project on the continent in the 1970s. Japan tried to limit Western domination of mineral supplies from Africa.

The African independence movement started in North Africa, and then spread southward, being slow to reach the southern end of Africa. Japan set up diplomatic relations with the newly established independent African nations, but Morikawa said Japan was conflicted between its desire to appear a friend of these new nations and its continued need to trade with South Africa. South Africa was also a reliable anti-communist bulwark during the Cold War, and this was another reason Japan tended to support the regime there, he explained. MoFA was initially cool towards African anti-colonialist movements and described the African National Congress as a “terrorist organization” in 1982. The end of the regime in South Africa, along with the end of the Cold War, therefore left Japan’s Africa policy in some disarray, and since 1985, Japan’s focus has shifted increasingly towards Asia.

Morikawa blames colonialist and “scientific racist” ideas, which were common among white people during the colonial era, for being passed on to Japan’s ruling elite and becoming an undercurrent in Japan’s view of Africa. Indeed, he states, these racist perceptions still affect policy and are quite widely held among the Japanese public.

Nevertheless, the Japanese view of Africans and African Americans may not be as pervasively negative toward the descendants of Africa as it has been. Mixed-race (Japanese and African American) model Ariana Mamiko Miyamoto was crowned Miss Universe Japan in 2015 and represented Japan at the Miss Universe pageant that year, placing in the top 10. She was the first hāfu (mixed) woman to be Miss Japan.

Moreover, Yasuke, an African who arrived in Japan in the 16^th century, became a real-life Black samurai who served under Oda Nobunaga, one of the most important feudal lords in Japanese history and a unifier of the country. He became legendary in the country and now is the inspiration for Netflix’s new anime series Yasuke.

In 1993, Japan launched the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD), trying to position itself as an altruistic donor of aid to Africa. But the reality is more complicated, according to Morikawa. This conference was established in response to the need for Japan to improve its image in Africa, since it had been strongly associated with colonialist and racist regimes in the past. The 1993 TICAD was perhaps the height of Japan’s diplomatic efforts towards Africa. But by the second TICAD in 1998, Africa was already starting to be disappointed that Japan was not matching its words with actions.

Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) peaked in 1997, and the total amount has halved since then. So, although the share going to Africa has risen (from around 10-15% in the late 1990s), the absolute amount going to Africa has still declined. And Japanese foreign aid still tends to have strings attached in that the money is spent with Japanese companies or other Japanese organizations.

Another factor affecting Japan’s diplomacy towards Africa has been that China has become increasingly involved with Africa, as China, like Japan before it, has become increasingly dependent on Africa’s natural resources. China became a net oil importer in 1993 and founded the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2003, holding its first major summit on Africa in 2006. China’s trade with Africa is now six times as large as Japan’s, and the gap is likely to widen further.

So, Japan is trying to avoid competing directly with China in African diplomacy but is instead pitching itself as having a different angle – Japan’s main interests being ODA, human rights, anti-corruption initiatives, etc. The intention is to appeal less to governments (as China is doing) and more to civil society. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was reorganized in 2006 to counter increasing Chinese influence in the developing world, setting up a Bureau of International Cooperation to engage in large-scale yen loans, technical cooperation and other areas. Morikawa noted that JICA’s priorities are set by MoFA, and that both JICA and MoFA are heavily influenced by their exchange of ideas with Washington (and to some extent London).

Morikawa sees China and Japan as “elephants” competing for influence in Africa and fears that the losers in this game would be African populations, much like the Africa proverb that says that when elephants fight, it is the grass that is trampled.

Another factor behind Japan’s courting of Africa in the last couple of decades has been that Africa’s UN votes were important in Japan’s effort to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. But the impetus has faded in recent years, according to Morikawa, as the 60^th anniversary of the UN in 2005 was considered the most promising date for a change in the UN’s structure, and Japan did not achieve its objective. Japan may not have ended its quest for membership, though. That government is now championing a permanent African seat on the Security Council, perhaps in hopes that Africans will return the favor.

At the most recent TICAD conference in August of this year, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that his government would use its rotating Security Council seat to press for UN reforms, including an adjustment in the lineup of permanent members on that body.

“Japan reiterates its determination to redress the historical injustice against Africa of not being represented through a permanent membership on the Security Council,” he said.

Kishida also pledged to invest about $30 billion in Africa over the next three years, promising smaller sums for food security in coordination with the African Development Bank, and said Japan would appoint a special envoy to the Horn of Africa, where a long drought has prompted the UN’s weather agency to warn recently of an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.” 

One of the fruits of Japanese diplomacy is that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces now have their first African base – in Djibouti. They are joining China, the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia – all at an extraordinarily small distance from one another. Russia and India also are said to have strong interests in setting up military bases there.

Thus, Japan seems determined to be a player in the new Scramble for Africa but are putting on a friendly face to do so.