2024 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 25-39
The Development Cooperation Charter was revised in June 2023. In this renewed charter, national interest to the Japanese was adopted as an objective of Japan's cooperation for the first time in the series of ODA/Development Cooperation charters. This author argues a foundation of this policy change is the win-win discourse that Japan's national interests and recipient country's interests can be met at the same time with one ODA project. This article claims that there are three logics to justify the discourse. They are analyzed with the Tinbergen Rule, Median Voter Theorem and White Man's Burden Claim, respectively. A main conclusion of this article is that since there are two independent objectives, i.e. “building a peaceful, stable, and prosperous international community” and Japan's national interest, two independent policies are necessary to meet them. The most reasonable combination would be the international cooperation policy for the prosperity of international community and security policy for national interests. In that context, benefits to recipient countries should be prioritized over Japan's national interests in the international cooperation policy.
