ABSTRACT

The aim of this chapter is to consider recent developments in Japan’s foreign policy towards Latin America. While Japan was traditionally seen as an important Asian partner for Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Japan’s relations with the region declined in the 1990s. At the start of the twenty-first century, Japanese governments have sought to revitalize links with Latin America, and these moves have been stepped up in recent years. Former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro¯’s visit to Latin America in 2004, during which he proposed the revitalization of economic links and the need to cooperate on international issues such as the reform of the United Nations Security Council and the environment, is an important marker of this shift in policy. The chapter explores the reasons behind Japan’s renewed interest in the region in the 2000s and suggests that a number of factors have combined to produce a more coherent and long-term foreign policy approach to Latin America which affords greater recognition of the potential economic and political significance of Latin America to Japan’s future role in the world. It looks, for example, at Japan’s pursuit of such strategic interests as the desire to garner support for a permanent seat on a (reformed) UN Security Council and secure natural resources. It also considers Japan’s response to China’s rapid advance into Latin America, and explores the reasons behind Japan’s signing of free trade agreements with Mexico and Chile. Finally, it considers the achievements of Koizumi’s ‘vision’ enunciated in 2004, and explores whether there is any evidence of it being sustained beyond his premiership.