China and Japan have sparred over disputed islands in the East China Sea. They have clashed over visits to a shrine in Tokyo and they have locked rhetorical horns in the editorial pages of a British newspaper, in which their respective ambassadors compared each other’s country to the dark forces of Harry Potter’s Voldemort. Now their travelling dispute has journeyed yet further afield: to Africa.
Last week, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, visited three African countries in an effort to drum up business and goodwill. The first Japanese prime minister to spend time on the continent in eight years, he visited Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Ethiopia in what he said was a “new frontier of Japanese diplomacy”. Japan has been a long-time aid donor to Africa, though it cannot match the huge amounts China is pouring into the continent. Still, in June, Tokyo hosted nearly 40 African leaders, pledging to step up commercial engagement as well as offering $14bn in assistance over five years.
There was a subtext to Mr Abe’s visit. One of his spokesmen could not resist comparing Japan’s modus operandi in Africa with that of China, which he characterised as extractive, exploitative and conducive to corruption. Japan, he said smilingly, “cannot provide African leaders with beautiful houses or beautiful ministerial buildings”. Instead Tokyo’s policy was to “aid the human capital of Africa”. Not surprisingly, Chinese diplomats rose to the bait. One sought to expose the “real Japan” – by holding up photographs depicting Japanese atrocities during the second world war.