Current Events: Affirmation in Africa: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Visit

As with the beginning of every new year, people everywhere look toward the future, hopeful that the year will be better and brighter than the last. Sadly in 2013 from January 16 to January 19 those hopes were cut short for 40 people when Algerian extremists attacked and overran the Tigantourine gas plant near In Amenas, Algeria in response to French intervention in Mali. Of the 40 innocent dead (not including the 29 kidnappers who also died during the crisis) only one was Algerian, the rest came from nine different countries with Japan incurring the loss of 10 victims; the highest from the crisis and the highest Japanese life loss outside of Japan since the September 11 attacks.

Last month, a day before the anniversary of the attack, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finished a weeklong visit to the Middle East and Africa attempting to replace the pain that filled the Japanese at the start of last year with optimism for the future. Mr. Abe’s tour, the first such visit in eight years by a Prime Minister of Japan, started in Oman, followed by Ivory Coast and Mozambique, and finished in Ethiopia. In each country he spoke of continued cooperation, support for infrastructure and investment, and, on his last day at the African Union Headquarters, announced an increase in aid to Africa over the next few years. Impressed? If you find yourself shrugging and thinking not really, that’s ok. It can be argued that the trip itself was fairly anticlimactic. When heads of state meet of course they are going to push for better economic and political relations, so it makes sense that Mr. Abe would visit resource-rich countries and promote stronger ties.

Yet if the trip was not necessarily impressive, it was still rather important in that it reaffirmed Mr. Abe’s domestic and foreign policy aims. These general aims are promoting trade and investment, diminishing China’s global influence, and establishing a more proactive role in diplomatic and security affairs around the world. Deeply connected, a loss or gain in one policy area negatively or positively affects the others. For example, if Mr. Abe succeeds in reinvigorating economic and political ties with Africa, it will increase competition with those foreign countries that also have, or hope to have, better trade and diplomatic relations there.

To point out the obvious competitor, China is currently Africa’s biggest trading partner other than the European Union, giving the Chinese government quite a bit of influence in the region. A day after his trip ended, the Chinese ambassador to the African Union, already perceiving a threat to China’s influence, labeled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a ‘troublemaker’ and warned African nations of his intentions. The timing of the visit adds to the sense of contention. The Prime Minister’s trip began soon after his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and war memorial in Tokyo, a visit that received harsh criticism from China and Korea and cold responses from allies like the United States. The tour also started at the tail-end of China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s very own trip to four African nations. In this case, Japan’s ability to form successful and fruitful ties in the region goes hand in hand with their effort to curb China’s clout.

As a quick aside, it is well known that Africa became an arena where the Americans and Soviets continuously competed for influence during the Cold War. Both the Americans and Soviets offered enormous political (often military) and economic support to willing allies to achieve their goals. Given the increased tensions between China and Japan over the past few months, and the direction both Mr. Abe and China’s president Xi Jinping seem to be taking their countries, it is not unfathomable that these two countries may face a similar rivalry on the continent in the future.

Lastly the visit can be viewed as part of Mr. Abe’s continuous effort to broaden Japan’s role in world affairs. More specifically, the Prime Minister wants to increase Japan’s Special Defense Force’s ability for collective self-defense and “proactive pacifism.” While in Africa, he took the opportunity to express his concerns about the violence in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, the latter country already having Japanese forces as part of the U.N. mission. He went on to advocate for peaceful solutions to the crises. By actively and extensively supporting other nations with the SDF, as seen in Africa and recently in the Philippines, Mr. Abe is painting a picture of an armed, but peaceful force. These types of missions and his portrayal increase the odds that he’ll be successful in amending the SDF’s restrictive role as defined by the constitution in the upcoming months.

It is easy to first view the trip as ordinary and perhaps inconsequential, but when viewed as part of Mr. Abe’s larger policy goals it offers a glimpse of his vision for Japan’s future; a future in which Japan is an influential global force and can successfully compete with and curb China. Such a future is not easily created and faces many setbacks. For one, Mr. Abe is one man and Japan is notorious for having a “revolving door” for its prime ministers. Yet, after many years of a sluggish economy and being perceived as the United States’ lackey, it is not too difficult to find others sharing his vision. As a final word of caution on Mr. Abe’s attempts to expand Japan’s diplomatic and economic role in world affairs, specifically in allowing the SDF more freedoms to act and assist other countries; any growth in power may further open Japan up to similar threats witnessed last year in Algeria. Instances like the In Amenas hostage crisis and the mid-December stabbing of a Japanese diplomat in Yemen are part of the inherent dangers of a broad global presence. A consequence many Japanese would probably rather do without.

Sean Mulvihill