Japan, South Asia and the South Pacific

Abstract

It might appear somewhat strange to include Japan’s relations with South Asia and the South Pacific in the same chapter. After all, the subcontinent of South Asia has a population of over one billion people compared to the four million people scattered across the South Pacific. But for Japanese policymakers and businessmen South Asia and the South Pacific are really the only regions in which Japan does not have any significant conflicts or diplomatic initiatives, while they are of secondary geoeconomic importance. In South Asia, Tokyo has tried to use its relatively large economic ties with Myanmar (Burma) to lessen the effects of the summer of 1989 government crack-down on the democracy movement and encourage economic reforms similar to those of China and Vietnam. In the South Pacific, wartime memories still linger and Japanese fishing policy has come under fire. But on the whole the outstanding political issues are minimal compared to Japan’s relations with other Third World regions.