This article analyses the speeches of Japanese prime ministers during the Cold War period to clarify their ideas on foreign aid, including ODA. During this period no single document existed to provide a definitive policy on foreign aid, whereas in the post-Cold War period the ODA Charter of 1992 plays such a role. In light of this, some have argued that there existed no clear doctrine in Japanese foreign assistance during the period. After examining the prime ministers' speeches the author set up a hypothesis regarding the ideas on foreign aid held by each prime minister. This article is an attempt to explain policy-makers' doctrines on foreign aid on the basis of primary sources. The author concentrates his attention on the ideas which clarify the primary motives concerning foreign aid for each prime minister.

The conclusions of this article are as follows. It is possible to identify key words or phrases for each prime minister which represent his ideas on foreign aid, such as Asia, trade, free world, international society, responsibility, contribution, comprehensive security and interdependence. As an attempt to understand better the mutual relations of such key words or phrases, three coordinate axes may be established. The first axis has Asian solidarity on one end and cooperation with Europe and America on the other. The second axis has external economic interests on one end and national security on the other. The third axis is extended upward from the intersection point of the first and second axes and indicates the degree of comprehensiveness. Each prime minister's ideas on foreign aid can be positioned within such a coordinate system by considering mainly the key words and phrases described above.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, many transformations of systems, regimes or orders occurred at various levels of world politics. The aim of this paper is to clarify trends for transformation of regions and security in Asia by analyzing the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO). In the post-Cold war era, the character and functions of regions have experienced major transformations such as the growing differentiation between “physical regions” and “functional regions.” With the dissolution of the bipolar system of the Cold War, security systems have changed from antagonistic ones to cooperative ones.

In the first decades of rapid independence, Central Asian countries reinforced the frame work of the modern nation-state while they sought new economic and political ties to replace those with the Soviet Union. For regional powers China and Russia, a new security system or regional cooperation is needed for their security in the post-Cold War era. Since 1987, China and Russia have been negotiating a new cooperative relationship regarding the Russo-Chinese border, which stretches 7000 km. With the break up of the Soviet Union, this bilateral negotiation changed to multilateral negotiation among China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 1992, and this multilateral agreement came to be called the “Shanghai Five.” With the addition of Uzbekistan to the Shanghai Five, the SCO was established in 2001. As Uzbekistan does not share a border with China, this multilateral forum changed its character and function. In addition, the emerging SCO suggests trends for transformation of regions and security in post-Cold War Asia.

This article aims to add a new perspective on how the Japanese government conducted Japan-South Korea negotiations on security-economic cooperation during the early 1980s.

The Zenko Suzuki administration judged that Japan could not meet the U.S. government’s expectations of strengthening its own defense capabilities. For this reason, the administration expressed willingness to cooperate with the U.S. for the economic and social development of strategically important countries. This was intended to work as a means to achieve the ‘comprehensive security’ policy adopted by the Masayoshi Ohira administration and burden-sharing in the U.S.-Japan Alliance. In other words, Japan had an economic cooperation policy that aimed to support developing countries, while recognizing the political impact of foreign aid. Japan had this policy in place before South Korea’s request in 1981 for 10 billion dollars in economic assistance.

The Suzuki administration had already acknowledged the need to support South Korea to ensure Japan’s cooperative relationship with the U.S. Nevertheless, there was a marked contrast in position between Japan and South Korea during the early stages of the negotiations on the official purpose and contents of economic cooperation. Steady negotiation efforts were necessary to create a situation where the Japanese Prime Minister could make bold political judgments and take action on this issue.

The Japanese government later decided to negotiate with South Korea based upon its main principles of economic cooperation, such as ‘improving people’s livelihood’ and ‘maintaining a balance among beneficiary countries’, while recognizing the political nature of such cooperation and its indirect contribution to Korea’s security. In other words, the Japanese government intended to maintain its own initiative on economic cooperation while responding flexibly to South Korea’s request for aid.

During the negotiations, the Japanese side had explicitly stated that it could not agree with Korea’s view that Japan should promote economic cooperation with Korea in order to ease Korea’s military burden. However, Japan did express some understanding of South Korea’s situation and Korea accepted Japan’s assertion that it would contribute to Korea’s economic and social stability. Negotiations then made progress and the two sides agreed on the official purpose for economic cooperation and the amount of assistance from Japan to Korea. Under these circumstances, Prime Minister Suzuki played an important role in deciding the proportion of Japan’s ODA to the total amount of assistance to South Korea. He also explained Japan’s position during the summit talks and dispatched his special envoys to Korea. Consequently, the differences in stance between the two countries on the content of the assistance was narrowed to a considerable extent before the inauguration of the Yasuhiro Nakasone administration.

However, negotiations between Japan and South Korea were suspended during the Japanese history textbook controversy that surfaced at the end of June 1982. When the textbook issue was settled, Suzuki announced that he would not run in the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election. Therefore, the Nakasone administration assumed responsibility for resolving the remaining issues.

There is thus room for further consideration of whether the Suzuki administration’s pacifist stance should be regarded as the reason behind the failure of negotiations with South Korea. It is important to bear in mind the necessity of examining various aspects of Japan’s domestic and international situations. Furthermore, Japan-South Korea negotiations on security-economic cooperation revealed a high degree of policy continuity among the Ohira, Suzuki and Nakasone administrations.