The Analysis of the Causes in Changes of Japan’s ODA Policies to China

摘要

This paper discusses recent issues related to the changes in the relationship between Japan and China, mainly focuses on the alterations in Japan’s ODA towards China during 30 years and its reasons from economic and political perspectives. The changes can be divided into three main periods. The first period was in the 1980s to mitigate the pressure of Sino-Japanese relationship and regain Japanese economic vitality in postwar; the second was in the 1990s, Japan shifted its ODA policy from “development aid” to “strategic aid” after the Cold War, and the third was in the beginning of the 21st century, Japan reduced the Yen loans sharply to China (Shen 2007). The paper will start researching the question from those points, namely what are the related backgrounds of ODA policies in those three periods, and the causes of the changes, and in the end the article draws a conclusion of the benefits from ODA to both Japan and China, and the implication of this case.