2022 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 115-127
While appreciating Prof. Kato's contribution of the special feature article on Japan's postwar development cooperation policies in historical perspectives, the discussion paper critically examines his main arguments on the characteristics of Japanese policies as distinct from the Euro-American counterparts, as exhibited in the high loan ratio, private-public partnership, regional priority and so on. Discussant argues, however, that those features defined by Prof. Kato as unique to the Japanese development cooperation policies are equally found in the Euro-American counterparts, if the total picture of ODA should be compared between the two. In fact, the most outstanding difference between the two approaches to development cooperation, though not referred to in Prof. Kato's paper, lie in the donor intervention in the internal affairs of developing country partners. Whereas the Euro-American approach emphasizes democratization and decentralization of authority of partner country's government, the Japan's longheld tradition has been not to get involved in the developing partner's political regime. While it is true that there has in recent times been some change in the Japanese approach, as shown in the adoption of the ODA Charter in the 1990s onward, Japan continues to show some hesitancy in de facto implementation and generally in the imposition of donor priorities on partner countries.
