Why Japan is maintaining a presence in the Caribbean

Kingston, November 17, 2014.- The Fourth Japan/CARICOM Ministerial-Level Conference held yesterday in Tokyo was attended by all 15 CARICOM member states. It follows the visit of Japan's prime minister to the Caribbean in July of this year when he announced a large aid package to be used for climate change.

The full attendance suggests that the CARICOM foreign ministers have gone to ask for more or to make an immediate drawdown. Attendance also reflects the special dispensation which the Japanese prime minister made on his trip. This was to allow all CARICOM countries to be eligible regardless of their per capita incomes. Previously Japan's position was that some CARICOM countries were graduated from their aid because of their high per capita income. This was a major change in their foreign and aid policies.

The obvious question is why is Japan so interested in the CARICOM, which it has ignored for decades? It is certainly not because Japan plans to assert itself as a global political superpower, a notion it relinquished way back in the 1980s. For a while Japan's extraordinary economic growth and its increased exports seem to make it a superpower. The United States, which is always on the look-out for challenges to its superpower status, saw Japan as replacing the Soviet Union as the contestant, at least in the economic sphere.

This was certainly not a possibility for a small set of islands that depended on the US to provide their defence. Japan is now off the radar screen because of the emergence of China as a genuine superpower.

Japan's renewed interest in the Caribbean is not because it has any illusion of geopolitics in Latin America and the Caribbean. What is it all about then? Japan wants a seat on the United Nations Security Council and is willing to win the support of countries to its cause.

The Japanese know that the CARICOM countries are in the midst of a serious economic crisis. Small countries with economic problems are susceptible to the financial entreaties of rich countries bearing gifts. This type of political opportunism born of the economic expediency of political leadership not encumbered by any fixity of principles is not unprecedented in CARICOM.

It is going to take much more than the votes of 15 CARICOM countries to get Japan what it aspires to. Add to the complexity and uncertainty that Japan is not the only country eyeing a seat on the Security Council and not the only government willing to be of assistance to the CARICOM governments in a time of need or greed.

Jamaica is particularly well placed to capitalise, since our ambassador at the UN is now going to chair the committee of the Security Council which is dealing with the reform of the Security Council. There is not much chance that the Security Council will be reformed, because the five permanent members do not want any change. However, Jamaica must seize the moment.