Before the 7th Mekong-Japan Summit meeting held on July 4th in Tokyo, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, published an op-ed in many (if not most) of the Mekong states’ newspapers. In it he articulated a committed relationship between Japan and the Mekong states, which includes Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. He pointed to the importance of the Mekong region to Japan, saying it was the first place he visited after being elected Prime Minister. He also pointed to the infrastructure projects Japan funded in Vietnam and Cambodia. In the future, Abe promised his New Tokyo Strategy, which will be partly operated through the Asian Development Bank, would pour additional money into each country, focusing on infrastructure and human resource development. Some of the specific areas of concern for Japan in the Mekong are said to be the need for more (green) energy, medical systems focused on an aging society, and automobiles as the middle class grows. It is interesting to note (1) the problems Japan sees in the region are areas it has a solution to offer — think Japan’s aging society/universal health care system or the many automobile makers in Japan — and (2) one of the Toyota Foundation’s new grants  specifically addresses the aging society in Southeast Asia, assuming there is one, which would indicate a level of coordination between Abe’s foreign policy goals and the philanthropic arm in Japan.

When it comes to the human resource development, the New Tokyo Strategy says:

To achieve “quality growth” and consolidate the rule of law, both sides shared the recognition that it is essential to cultivate and secure human resources, particularly legal and industrial professionals, and skilled workers.

Both sides also reaffirmed the significance of human resource development in other areas, such as financial infrastructure, education, healthcare, agriculture and food related industries, and women’s empowerment, and renewed their determination to coordinate with private companies and relevant NGOs in this regard.

Future economic growth in the region will be driven by — or is thought to be driven by — particular sectors of the economy, each with a strategic interest to Japan vis-à-vis China. Legal  professionals will make the Mekong states play by the laws and norms of the global economy, something Japan (and the USA) see China, another major development partner of the Mekong region, as not promoting. With the Mekong region’s cheap labor, the development of more industrial professionals will drive industrial growth that will directly compete with China’s, which is experiencing hardships as wages increase. The hope is that more private businesses will set up shop in the Mekong Region instead of going to China. The skilled workers in New Tokyo Strategy, although unspecified, are thus likely within existing industries, namely textile workers. Although textile workers have had difficult labor relations with owners of capital and caused severe health consequences in places like Cambodia, the textile industry accounts for a large part of the economy and has room to grow in the future.

These developments need to be put in the context of the Asean Economic Community, which will begin at the end of the year and allow the free movement of labor and capital within Southeast Asia, including the Mekong region. One likely outcome of the AEC is for highly educated Cambodians or Laotians to freely migrate to wealthier countries like Malaysia or Indonesia or Singapore where their economic prospects would be brighter. This poses a difficult problem with the Mekong region and Abe’s foreign policy: the Mekong region must balance the drive for a highly educated society with the prospect of brain-drain. I suspect each country to walk a fine line: promoting additional educational initiatives while also bolstering low-wage industries. As such, Japan will likely respond in a similar fashion: promote the development of the textile industries while also partnering with higher education institutions to advance certain fields like law or medicine.  It is therefore likely Japan will support higher education institutions in many of the Mekong region’s states, just like it is already doing in Vietnam with the Japan-Vietnam grad school, which will open in 2016, and continue to participate in the Southeast Asian Engineering Education Development Network.

Japan’s recent diplomatic movements span beyond economic development. Not only is Japan offering a counterweight to China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank by increasing funding through the Asian Development Bank where Japan holds the largest proportion of shares, but also it is offering a vision of regional security based on mutual agreement and cooperation, echoing the principles of Asean. This is in direct contrast to China’s unilateral moves in the South China Sea of late. As such, Abe made sure to speak with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung directly about the country’s security concerns of China’s recent maritime conquests.

On top of this full-court press in the Mekong region, Japan has also sent military personnel to Australia for joint operations between Australia and the USA. This is a further move to show China that Japan is serious in its regional interests.  Japan is receiving additional help from the US as it tries to further engage with Southeast Asia as a counter to China: Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s Communist Party chief, will meet US President Barack Obama next week and  Michelle Obama is planing additional international trips to promote her Let Girls Learn initiative, which originally targeted Cambodia and brought the First Lady to Japan. Since the USA is the second largest share holder in the Asian Development Bank behind Japan, I suspect there is a high level of coordination between Japan and the USA to counter China’s regional goals in the Mekong.