From Rising Sun to New Dawn: Japan’s Efforts in Cambodia’s Reconstruction

This essay won an honorable mention in the 2024 YRIS High School Essay Contest for its response to the following prompt: “Evaluate an example of a foreign policy, historical or contemporary, that can be considered a success.”

“I’m very worried I won’t find enough money to feed my daughter,” cried a 32-year-old Cambodian seamstress, whose husband had died in a previous civil war. “We’re frightened.”¹ Her words echoed the anxiety widely held by Cambodians after July 2, 1997, when the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) seized control of the capitol Phnom Penh and expelled the rival royalist FUNCINPEC party.² The violence led most foreign countries to withdraw aid, leaving Cambodia’s economy crippled.³ Japan’s continued aid and sponsorship of the 1998 election served as a lifeboat for Cambodia’s economic stability, social welfare, and democratization efforts throughout the crisis period and into the 2010s. 

The eruption of political violence in 1997 reminded the Cambodian and international community of the horrors of the previous decade, when from 1975 to 1979 the communist Khmer Rouge attempted to transform Cambodia into an agrarian society⁴ and murdered 1.5-2 million people.⁵ Thus, the 1997 political crisis destroyed international confidence in Cambodia’s future. Japan’s continued aid to Cambodia reflected popular sentiment in Japan for a foreign policy framework promoting democracy abroad.⁶ Policy makers in Tokyo believed that by securing “freedom from want” (basic economic needs) they could foster “freedom from fear” (political freedom), thus developing the underlying factors involved in cultivating a democracy.⁷ With this rationale, Japan conditioned economic aid on the CPP’s adhering to the Paris 1991 Accords, guaranteeing human-rights, and holding free and fair elections in 1998. As a result, Japan’s foreign policy played a significant role in the economic growth and the emergence of pro democracy movements in Cambodia in the late 1990s, early 2000s, and the decades to come. 

Japan’s consistent aid stabilized economic growth and improved living standards after the 1998 elections. While other foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows had stalled in Cambodia, Japan poured $720 million into the country from 1997 to 2007. Specifically, Japanese grants helped to develop Cambodian infrastructure: Japan provided millions of yen for the development of rural irrigation and financed the Neak Leoung Bridge, which has linked poorer rural regions to urban services such as medical care and education.⁸ Furthermore, Japanese interest-free grants funded Japanese-led medical training in Cambodian hospitals and critical medical technology.⁹ These advancements have improved healthcare outcomes, including reducing the maternal mortality ratio from 1,020 per 100,000 births in 1990 to 250 per 100,000 births in 2015.¹⁰ Japan’s aid thus stabilized Cambodia’s economic growth and improved the country’s physical and social infrastructure in the early 2000s. 

In addition, Japan’s willingness to continue FDI, alongside its endorsement of the 1998 election, encouraged other Western countries to resume aid gradually in the 2010s. International aid to Cambodia steadily increased from $149 million in 2000 to $3.7 billion in 2019.¹¹ The continuous flow of FDI from Japan and other countries resulted in rapid economic growth in Cambodia, with foreign firms employing nearly half of the working population in 2014.¹² Therefore, Japan’s foreign policy benefited Cambodia’s economy in the long run by paving the way for foreign investments from other countries. 

Japanese foreign policy also fostered a climate of increased dissent and democratic energy by supporting 1998 elections in Cambodia with conditioned aid and organizational support. In the lead up to the 1998 elections, Japan’s sponsorship allowed pro-democracy leaders to establish campaigning and organizational infrastructure, which led to the first modern democratic movements in Cambodia. In 1998, organized by opposition political parties, over ten thousand Cambodians protested the CPP’s unfair election practices through a sit-in in front of the National Assembly Building. The Democracy Square Movement, as it was called, was the largest pro-democracy movement in the previous two decades.¹³ Meanwhile, Sam Rainsy, leader of the anti-corruption party, organized the first labor union in Cambodian history, which protested workplace corruption and poor working conditions.¹⁴ Indeed, Sam Rainsy remarked that he hadn’t expected so many protestors, considering the lackluster support for previous movements in the late 1980s.¹⁵ Furthermore, the democratic precedents established by the 1998 election, such as the (albeit limited) right to protest, were followed by political demonstrators in 2013 and 2014. These protests resulted in the seating of several anti-corruption members who had previously been barred from parliament.¹⁶ The Japanese-sponsored 1998 election nurtured an environment of political defiance and enabled nascent democratic movements in Cambodia to make political gains for the common Cambodian. 

One would be remiss to declare Japanese democratization efforts in Cambodia an absolute success, but the flawed elections were in part due to Cambodia’s historical political environment. According to Downie, election observers from the U.S. and E.U. reported several election irregularities, including voter intimidation by CPP members and politically motivated murders.¹⁷ However, the lack of complete fairness in the 1998 election might be more appropriately attributed to the historic political environment of Cambodia. According to historian Serge Thion, Cambodian society is rooted in clientship and patronage,¹⁸ where “people with limited means sought protection” from the elite class.¹⁹ This enabled “strong men” like Hun Sen to obstruct external efforts to democratize the country. In fact, elections would have been considerably less fair without Japanese aid. Japan, threatening to withdraw aid, influenced Hun Sen to allow FUNCIPEC opposition leader Prince Ranariddh to campaign in opposition.²⁰ Moreover, Japan contracted thousands of election workers and donated election equipment to maximize the election’s integrity.²¹ Despite challenges stemming from Cambodia’s political culture, Japan’s conditional aid and organizational support played a vital role in enabling Cambodia’s historically-significant, albeit flawed, 1998 elections that advanced the country a step towards greater democracy. 

Japan’s use of economic diplomacy to positively guide Cambodian politics and society, though imperfect, stands out for its successful fostering of democratic reforms and economic stabilization in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And yet, the world’s largest donors have increasingly turned away from conditioned foreign aid. The United States, as the largest foreign aid donor, has preferred an unequivocal approach, issuing blank checks to countries despite their flawed democratic institutions while often ignoring countries exhibiting potential for democratic transformation. Japan’s foreign policy approach offers an effective intervention model to spur positive development in emergent democracies.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Phnom Penh : New construction project | Image sourced from Flickr

1. Keith Richburg, “Pullout by Foreigners Paralyzes Cambodia,” The Washington Post, July 16, 1997, accessed May 30, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/07/16/pullout-by-foreigners paralyzes-cambodia/7a641218-26c2-4e8b-a7f6-9d74a335090b/. ↩︎
2. Mikio Oishi and Fumitaka Furuoka, “Can Japanese Aid Be an Effective Tool of Influence? Case Studies of  Cambodia and Burma,” Asian Survey 43, no. 6 (2003): 893-895, JSTOR. ↩︎
3. Tony Kevin, “Cambodia’s International Rehabilitation, 1997–2000,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 22, no. 3  (2000): 596, JSTOR. ↩︎
4. Alexander Laban Hinton, “Agents of Death: Explaining the Cambodian Genocide in Terms of Psychosocial  Dissonance,” American Anthropologist 98, no. 4 (1996): 818, JSTOR. ↩︎
5. National Research Council, 5, The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia,, ed.  Reed HE and Keely CB (Washington D.C: National Academies Press (US), 2001), 1, National Library of  Medicine. ↩︎
6. Maiko Ichihara, Understanding Japanese Democracy Assistance, March 25, 2013, accessed June 1, 2024,  https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2013/03/understanding-japanese-democracy assistance?lang=en¢er=global.
   securing “freedom from want” (basic economic needs) they could foster “freedom from fear.” ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. Koizumi Yukihiro, Neak Loeung Bridge (Tsubasa Bridge) Construction Project, https://www.jsce.or.jp/e/archive/project/pj12.html.. ↩︎
9. “Cambodia and Japan to Improve Maternal and Child Healthcare,” We Are Tomodachi, Summer 2020, accessed May 30, 2024, https://www.japan.go.jp/tomodachi/2020/earlysummer2020/cambodia.html. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. Mah, “Industrial-Led Economic,” 9. ↩︎
12. World Bank, Cambodia’s Future Jobs: Linking to the Economy of Tomorrow, November 19, 2019, accessed May 30, 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/cambodia/publication/cambodias-future-jobs-linking-to-the-economy-of-tomorrow. ↩︎
13. Caroline Hughes, The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Transition, 1991-2001 (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
    2003), 185-197, digital file. ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. RFA Khmer Service, “Cambodian Opposition Leader Accepted as MP Ahead of Parliament Sitting,” Radio Free Asia, July 25, 2014, accessed May 30, 2024. ↩︎
17. Ibid, 49-52. ↩︎
18. Serge Thion, “The Pattern of Cambodian Politics,” International Journal of Politics 16, no. 3 (1986), JSTOR. ↩︎
19. Kheang Un, “State, Society and Democratic Consolidation: The Case of Cambodia,” Pacific Affairs 79, no. 2
    (2006): 225-228, JSTOR. ↩︎
20. Oishi and Furuoka, “Can Japanese,” 895. ↩︎
21. Nalani Vittal, “Piecing the Peace in Cambodia: Return of Politics,” Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 15 (2000): 1290, JSTOR. ↩︎