Why did Japan suspend foreign aid to China? Japan's foreign aid decision-making and sources of aid sanction

Abstract

The Japanese government has suspended part of its foreign aid to China twice in the past 12 years: first in 1989 after theTiananmen Square incident, and secondly in response to China's nuclear testing in 1995. These two foreign aid suspension cases illustrate that the Japanese government has established extension and suspension of its foreign aid as a multiple-use foreign policy tool, as the country became the top aid donor in the world in the 1990s. The cases also indicate the importance of Japanese domestic politics and its public opinion in supporting the government's unilateral foreign policy actions, as foreign aid becomes an important policy tool aiming to enhance the security environment for Japan. Both of these conclusions go beyond the conventional theoretical understanding of Japan's foreign policy-making, which has emphasized Japan as a reactive state with single-minded pursuit of its economic interests.