REUTERS
May 21, 2021 at 17:04 JST
Japan will have no choice but to rethink its Myanmar development aid if the situation in the Southeast Asian country does not improve, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Friday, adding that private investment might also not be possible.
Japan is a major donor to Myanmar and big Japanese companies have aggressively expanded business in recent years, seeing it as the region’s last major frontier market.
Japan also fears pushing Myanmar closer to China.
Myanmar’s security forces have killed more than 800 people since a wave of protests broke out after the military overthrew an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group says.
“If the current situation continues, we will have no choice but to re-think our overseas development aid, and I believe it also might not be possible for private companies to invest, even if they want to,” Motegi told a regular news conference.
“As a country that’s supported democracy, and as a friend, we must convey this clearly.”
He gave no further details, but Motegi was quoted in the Nikkei newspaper on Friday as saying that Japan was willing to cut off all aid to Myanmar, even for existing projects. Japan has already halted negotiations on new aid.
Japan has been a big investor and source of technical help and development aid for Myanmar’s semi-civilian governments in the decade of political reform that followed the end of the last era of military rule in 2011.
Myanmar’s generals have in the past shunned efforts by foreign governments to press them to follow a more democratic path.
In what appeared to be a sign of an uncompromising military stand against the pro-democracy movement, Myanmar’s junta-appointed election commission will dissolve Suu Kyi’s political party because of what it said was fraud in a November election, the Myanmar Now news outlet said on Twitter, citing a commissioner.
Reuters was not immediately able to reach the election commission and officials from Suu Kyi’s party did not respond to a request for comment.
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Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi meets reporters in Tokyo on Feb. 18 after vertually meeting with his counterparts from the United States, India and Australia. (The Asahi Shimbun)
