Earlier this month it emerged that Japanese officials are planning to upgrade the country’s only foreign military base, in Djibouti. The news might come as a surprise, given that the scourge of piracy in the Horn of Africa, which prompted the base’s construction, has been almost completely eradicated. In 2011, when the facility opened, there were 237 incidents involving suspected pirates operating from neighboring Somalia. Last year, the figure was nine.
If the battle against piracy has been a near-total victory, why is Japan looking to redouble its offensive? The question is particularly puzzling given that government debt now stands at 200% of GDP, and the country’s aging population has prompted fears of a social security crisis. Surely the Japanese government has more important things to spend its money on.
But observers on the ground in Djibouti will understand. The tiny country is a powder keg of competing global interests, none more prominent than China, which opened its own monolithic military camp there last year. Japan’s political relationship with its perennial Asian rival may have thawed in recent years, yet the two countries remain locked in a fierce economic struggle that now centers on Africa, whose untapped economic potential makes it the ideal proxy battleground.
Officials in Tokyo are open about the reasons for their interest in Djibouti. When plans to expand the Japanese base were announced last year – a precursor to the latest upgrade – government sources admitted they were responding to the new Chinese hub. Now analysts suggest Djibouti’s president Ismail Guelleh will gift the country’s monolithic Doraleh Container Terminal to China, after ejecting Dubai’s state-owned operator DP World. The Emirati company has even sued China over the dispute, claiming the state-owned China Merchants induced Djibouti to break contract.
Japan is not the only country to raise concerns. In the US, a pair of senators recently wrote to the Trump administration expressing their alarm over Beijing’s rumored Doraleh deal. Yet Tokyo’s priorities are very different from Washington’s; while the US relies on its own Djibouti base, Camp Lemonnier, as a jump-off point for military action in nearby Somalia and Yemen, Japan has maintained a strict policy of non-intervention in foreign conflicts since 1945. Until 2015, the policy was enshrined in law, and even today the Japanese army is known as the Self-Defense Forces. With the piracy threat all but extinguished, the primary purpose of the Djibouti base is to provide logistical support for Japan’s peacekeeping work with the UN.
In economic terms, however, Djibouti – and China’s stake in it – matters a great deal to Japan. Because, just like China, Japan sees huge potential in Africa, and has readily copied Beijing’s playbook in its attempt to capitalize. Aping China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ investment strategy, the Japanese government has pledged billions of dollars to Africa and encouraged the private sector to follow suit. Like China, Japan has funded several major projects, from a port expansion in Mombasa to a digital broadcasting system in Botswana. And just like Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has invited Africa’s leaders to glitzy summits in Tokyo, his officials talking warmly of their commitment to the continent’s prosperity.
Age-old rivalry
This commitment is nothing new. Japanese companies have been investing in Africa since the early post-war period and the first edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development was held as far back as 1993. But the value of this relationship has been magnified by a string of factors, including rising commodities prices, Japan’s chronic mineral deficit, and an energy crisis precipitated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Above all, though, Japan wants to prevent China from surging too far ahead economically. Tokyo powered away from its vast neighbor after 1945, its economic miracle leaving China’s clunky bureaucracy sputtering in its vapor trail. But since the mid-1980s, when China’s planners mapped out their game-changing mixed economy, the balance of power has shifted. China’s economy overtook Japan’s in 2011. Now, it’s nearly three times as big. Japan has launched a fierce counter-attack, forging its own economic corridor with India to rival Belt and Road and attempting to woo the ASEAN region, which has fallen under Beijing’s sway in recent years.
In this context, it’s easy to see why Africa is so attractive. The continent is a huge part of Beijing’s growth strategy; what’s more, China’s involvement is increasingly unpopular with the African people. The hordes of Chinese companies parachuted in to deliver Beijing-backed infrastructure projects have been widely accused of racism and mistreatment of domestic workers, and there are fears that China’s financial generosity is nothing more than a giant debt trap, which will soon snap shut to claim Africa’s most prized possessions. Japan has played on these fears, lamenting Africa’s vast debts while stressing that, unlike certain other foreign powers, they want the African people to share in the benefits of their investment.
Yet, for all Japan’s optimism about claiming a major slice of Africa for itself, the reality is that China enjoys a huge head-start. For one thing, Xi’s government has far more money at its disposal; Japan pledged $30 billion to Africa in 2016, so China responded by promising $60 billion earlier this year. Furthermore, China’s willingness to offer loans with no strings attached appeals to some of Africa’s less scrupulous rulers. Finally, China’s economic model allows the state to blur the lines between international aid and investment – and means funding can be signed far more quickly than in rivals such as Japan.
If you want an example of the dominance China already enjoys in Africa, just go back to Djibouti. Guelleh’s government, blighted by allegations of corruption and despotism, has amassed a debt pile approaching $2 billion and nearly 90% is owed to China. For all Tokyo presents itself as a fairer, more enlightened partner, Beijing already has Africa firmly in its grip. It’s hard to see how Japan – or the region’s debt-riddled constituents – can loosen it.
