This is the first book to examine in-depth Japan's relations with Africa. Japan's dependence on raw materials from South Africa made it impossible for Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s to support other African states in their fight against the minority government and its policy of apartheid. Kweku Ampiah's detailed analysis of Japan's political, economic and diplomatic relations with sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to the early 1990s makes it clear that Japan was lukewarm in the struggle against apartheid. Case studies of Tanzania and Nigeria dissect Japan's trade, aid and investment policies in sub-Saharan Africa more widely.

Since the early 1990s, Japan has played an increasingly important and influential role in Africa. A primary mechanism that has furthered its influence has been through its foreign aid policies. Japan’s primacy, however, has been challenged by changing global conditions related to aid to Africa, including the consolidation of the poverty reduction agenda and China’s growing presence in Africa. This book analyzes contemporary political and economic relations in foreign aid policy between Japan and Africa. Primary questions focus on Japan’s influence in the African continent, reasons for spending its limited resources to further African development, and the way Japan’s foreign aid is invested in Africa. The context of examining Japan’s foreign aid policies highlights the fluctuation between its commitments in contributing to international development and its more narrow-minded pursuit of its national interests. The contributors examine Japan’s foreign aid policy within the theme of a globalized economy in which Japan and Africa are inextricably connected. Japan and many African countries have come to realize that both sides can obtain benefits through closely coordinated aid policies. Moreover, Japan sees itself to represent a distinct voice in the international donor community while Africa needs foreign aid from all sources.

Japan-Africa Relations seeks to study the complex nature of the dynamics of power relations between Japan and Africa since the Bandung Conference in 1955, with an emphasis on the period starting from the 1970s up to the present.

African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895-1945

The Routledge Handbook of Africa–Asia Relations is the first handbook aimed at studying the interactions between countries across Africa and Asia in a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive way. Providing a balanced discussion of historical and on-going processes which have both shaped and changed intercontinental relations over time, contributors take a thematic approach to examine the ways in which we can conceptualise these two very different, yet inextricably linked areas of the world. Using comparative examples throughout, the chronological sections cover: • Early colonialist contacts between Africa and Asia; • Modern Asia–Africa interactions through diplomacy, political networks and societal connections; • Africa–Asia contemporary relations, including increasing economic, security and environmental cooperation. This handbook grapples with major intellectual questions, defines current research, and projects future agendas of investigation in the field. As such, it will be of great interest to students of African and Asian Politics, as well as researchers and policymakers interested in Asian and African Studies.

A rich empirical account of China's foreign economic policy towards Japan after World War Two, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified Chinese sources. Amy King offers an innovative conceptual framework for the role of ideas in shaping foreign policy, and examines how China's Communist leaders conceived of Japan after the war. The book shows how Japan became China's most important economic partner in 1971, despite the recent history of war and the ongoing Cold War divide between the two countries. It explains that China's Communist leaders saw Japan as a symbol of a modern, industrialised nation, and Japanese goods, technology and expertise as crucial in strengthening China's economy and military. For China and Japan, the years between 1949 and 1971 were not simply a moment disrupted by the Cold War, but rather an important moment of non-Western modernisation stemming from the legacy of Japanese empire, industry and war in China.

Once the world's largest ODA provider, contemporary Japan seems much less visible in international development. However, this book demonstrates that Japan, with its own aid philosophy, experiences, and models of aid, has ample lessons to offer to the international community as the latter seeks new paradigms of development cooperation.