Japan’s charm offensive returns to Africa

President Uhuru Kenyatta with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on March 13, 2015. PHOTO | ISSEI KATO |  AFP

By ALLAN OLINGO

In Summary

• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will attend the Nairobi summit, is expected to seek Africa’s support for Japan’s push to reform the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to increase the number of permanent members.
• Tokyo will also be hoping to strike several trade deals with mineral producing countries, as it relies on Africa’s mineral imports for the metals it needs in car manufacturing. Japan is one of the world’s biggest producers of automotive and electronic products.
• According to Bloomberg, Japanese companies accounted for more than $7 billion investment in Africa compared with China’s $20 billion.

Africa is becoming a lucrative investment destination for Asia’s leading economies — primarily China, India and Japan.

This month, Nairobi is hosting the 6th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which will focus on creating a favourable environment for Japan-Africa economic co-operation.

In this forum, Japan hopes to cement its diplomatic and economic clout on the continent. This follows similar Summits with the Chinese and India last year. In November, Delhi hosted the India-Africa summit that saw it commit to $10 billion in funding, 50,000 scholarships and infrastructure projects for Africa.

A month later, in Johannesburg, China hosted its own Africa summit that resulted in a $60 billion pledge to develop Africa’s infrastructure, education and health sectors.

The conference, from August 27-28 will offer Tokyo a chance not only to lobby for its bid for a UN Security Council permanent seat but also seek to secure African mineral imports while seeking a market for its products in exchange for infrastructure and development aid to the continent.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will attend the Nairobi summit, is expected to seek Africa’s support for Japan’s push to reform the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to increase the number of permanent members.

Tokyo has long pushed for reforms at the UN, saying the current UNSC does not fully meet the needs of the international community.

“It is time for action, and Japan is ready to work with other countries. When the UN was formed, there were only 51 member countries, with five of them having the permanent membership status. This hasn’t changed despite the organisation currently having 192 members.

We need to change this,” Mr Abe said in March, adding that his country has demonstrated that it has the capacity to take on further responsibility as a permanent member of a reformed Council.

Tokyo is currently the second-largest contributor to the UN budget among the member states, bearing 12.5 per cent of the total budget.

Lack of representation

Africa accounts for more than a quarter of the member states. But it does not have a permanent seat, with only three countries having served as non-permanent members on the UNSC so far.

This is the ammunition Mr Abe expects to use to charm countries like Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Libya, which have expressed the same interest, in exchange for economic co-operation.

READ: TICAD talks to centre on value addition

Jonathan Berkshire Miller, director of the Council on International Policy, said that Japan’s efforts to join an expanded permanent Security Council have forced it to cast its diplomatic wide net in Africa where numerous countries support UNSC reforms.