ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 outlines the issues and challenges related to the Japanese policy engagement in Central Asia (CA) in an effort to distill the lessons for improving its efficiency. As narrated in several previous chapters, one of the first countries in East Asia that applied the notion of the Silk Road to its diplomatic initiatives in CA was Japan. Japanese Silk Road Diplomacy was launched in 1997 by Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro, following the Obuchi Mission of the same year, and became one of the first international diplomatic initiatives appealing to the connectivity and revival of the Silk Road. It was followed by successor initiatives from Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, who first dispatched a “Silk Road Energy Mission” in July of 2002 and launched the Japanese region-building initiative of Central Asia plus Japan in August 2004. He also visited CA in 2006. PM Abe Shinzo visited all five CA states in 2015. These initiatives demonstrate that CA is Japan’s latest “frontier” in Asia, where Japanese presence can be further expanded. For CA governments, Japanese involvement in CA represents an attempt to balance Russian and Chinese engagements, while having access to the technologies and knowledge much needed to upgrade the industrial structure of their economies.
