The Japanese government introduced new foreign aid guidelines in 1991 and it pledged to impose aid sanctions on those aid recipient countries whose governments violated human rights or democratic principles. The introduction of the new aid guidelines is expected to produce a certain effect on...

In this paper, Japan’s positive and negative aid sanctions policy toward Asian countries since the introduction of new aid guidelines will be examined and discussed. Japan can choose to impose negative aid sanctions (the suspension or a decrease in foreign aid) on recipient countries where...

The introduction of the ODA Charter in 1992 can be seen as Japan’s official pledge to pay more attention to political conditions in recipient countries and to impose political conditionalities on them. However, in practice, the Japanese government has continued using foreign aid as a...

The reinforcement of the Non-governmental organisations’ role in Japan’s ODA program is a challenging task. However, if this objective is achieved, at least three advantages could ensue. Firstly, Japanese NGOs would be able to independently carry out the small-scale aid projects that...

At the end of the 1990s, the Japanese government distributed annually more than US$10 billion as foreign aid directly or indirectly to developing countries. Japan’s ODA can be divided into the following four groups: 1) Bilateral Grants, 2) Technical Co-operation, 3) Multilateral Aid, and 4)...

This paper examines Japan’s foreign aid sanction policy toward China. The Japanese government seems to be reluctant to take strict measures against China. Only due to strong criticisms from other aid donors did Japan cut aid to China. However, economic assistance was resumed as soon as Japan...

During the Cold War, Japan seldom showed an interest in the political conditions in aid recipients. However, after the Cold War, Japan has been actively imposing negative aid sanctions (the suspension or a decrease in foreign aid) on recipient countries where undesirable policy changes occur,...

In Japan, the aid administration system was very complicated. Although there were more than ten government agencies involved in Japan’s ODA program, the aid administration had been dominated by three ministries and one agency – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of Finance...

This paper examines Japan’s aid sanctions policy toward African countries since new guidelines for Japanese ODA were introduced. There were three cases of positive reinforcement in Africa, i.e. in Madagascar, Zambia) and Guinea. Also, the Japanese government implemented nine negative...

The state of Sarawak is situated on Borneo Island in East Malaysia. It is the largest state in Malaysia covering an area of approximately 124 thousand square kilometres. Sarawak’s population is approximately 2.07 million people, which makes it the fourth most populous state in the country....