By Hiroaki Shiga
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once warned: “He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster.” This aphorism now resonates in Japan’s approach to Official Development Assistance (ODA). Japan’s overseas generosity and its commitment to the economic and social development of recipient countries has been a big part of its positive global image: it led the world in ODA for the entire 1990s in terms of total amount, offering a wide range of assistance including infrastructure development, disaster management, healthcare, education, democratization, and peacebuilding. But now the more Tokyo mobilizes its aid program to counter China’s growing geopolitical influence, the more it adopts the very features of Beijing’s approach that it is trying to resist.
From the 1950s onward, Japanese and Chinese overseas aid programs have shared several traits: a heavy reliance on loans rather than grants, a focus on infrastructure, and a reluctance to interfere in recipients’ domestic politics through a moralistic and preachy approach. In recent years, amid intensifying Sino-Japanese rivalry, both have increasingly embraced the securitization of aid—using aid as a tool to advance strategic and even military objectives.
China took the lead in this shift. Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has pursued the goal of building a “world-class military” by 2049, including transforming its navy from a coastal defense force into a blue-water fleet. As part of this strategy, China has used aid under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to construct dual-use ports in developing countries—such as Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Nacala in Mozambique, and Ream in Cambodia—that can host Chinese naval vessels.
Amid intensifying Sino-Japanese rivalry, both have increasingly embraced the securitization of aid—using aid as a tool to advance strategic and even military objectives.
Japan soon followed. The second Shinzo Abe administration, launched in 2012, actively advanced the securitization of ODA. In 2013, the National Security Strategy designated ODA as a field related to national security, ensuring closer alignment between aid policy and broader strategic objectives. This represented a significant shift from Japan’s previous emphasis that ODA primarily aimed to support economic and social development in recipient countries.
In 2016, Tokyo unveiled its “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) initiative, aimed at maintaining the international rule of law and countering China’s attempts to change the status quo by force. ODA became central to this vision. For example, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has supplied patrol vessels to the coast guards of Southeast Asian states such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. JICA explains these projects as contributing to these states’ progress toward meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and enhancing their maritime law enforcement capabilities. However, the security implications are clear when one considers the fact that the Japan-built patrol vessels provided are comparable in size and equipment to those used by Japan’s Coast Guard in confrontations with Chinese vessels near the disputed Senkaku Islands.
More recently, in 2023, the Fumio Kishida administration introduced the Official Security Assistance (OSA) scheme, enabling the provision of Japanese-made defense equipment directly to the militaries of developing countries. The goal is to strengthen deterrence capabilities of Southeast Asian countries and rebalance a regional power distribution that has been tilting in China’s favor. Together, securitized ODA and newly introduced OSA represent a deliberate challenge to Japan’s self-imposed identity as a “peace-loving nation (heiwa kokka),” and instead embody Abe and Kishida’s vision of Japan as a “proactive contributor to peace (sekkyokuteki heiwa kokka).”
The securitization of Japan’s ODA also invites China’s narrative that Japan is re-militarizing and threatening regional peace and stability.
This change may not come without cost. Securitized ODA accounted for only 5 percent of Japan’s total ODA loans in fiscal year 2024. However, extending the trend could increasingly redirect ODA budgets intended to address recipient countries’ urgent development challenges. Furthermore, Japan may have to sacrifice ODA’s stated goal of promoting democratization in order to maintain amicable relations with authoritarian leaders in strategically important countries such as Cambodia. The securitization of Japan’s ODA also invites China’s narrative that Japan is re-militarizing and threatening regional peace and stability.
Tokyo insists that its aid approach remains unchanged and distinct from China’s, with no “debt-trap” lending, more concessional loan terms, full transparency in aid data, and higher-quality standards. At the 2019 Osaka G20 Summit, Japan spearheaded the “G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment,” urging other donor countries to prioritize openness, transparency, economic efficiency, and debt sustainability. While not naming China explicitly, the principles were clearly informed by concerns that Chinese aid often falls short of these standards.
However, Beijing is closing the gap, making strenuous efforts to enhance its aid quality and cultivate the image of an alternative provider of global public goods. In 2018, China established the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) to centralize and professionalize its aid operations. In 2021, it announced a shift away from large-scale infrastructure loans toward “small, high-quality livelihood projects,” with an emphasis on poverty reduction, healthcare, and human resource development. That same year, President Xi launched the Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the United Nations General Assembly as a multilateral framework for advancing the SDGs. These steps are gradually eroding Japan’s ability to claim a decisive edge in aid quality. If Japanese and Chinese aid becomes similar, developing countries may come to prefer Chinese aid, which offers larger amounts and faster decision-making and implementation. This would mean developing countries becoming increasingly integrated into closer political and economic ties with China.
Japan itself, once the world’s largest ODA provider, is now too hobbled by debt to sustain its past generosity.
Compounding Japan’s difficulties, many like-minded Western donors are retreating from the field. In 2024, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Finland all cut their aid budgets to bolster defense spending. The United States went further in 2025, abolishing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashing aid spending by nearly 90 percent.
Japan itself, once the world’s largest ODA provider, is now too hobbled by debt to sustain its past generosity. Japan has by far the worst fiscal deficit among G7 countries, with central government debt in FY2024 exceeding 1.2 trillion yen (US$7.65 billion), or approximately 200 percent of GDP. Given that the Kishida administration pledged to increase defense spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, and that the Takaichi administration’s “responsible proactive fiscal policy” will be directed mainly towards defense and social security, any significant expansion of ODA appears unlikely.
In this environment, Japan’s ODA policymakers must wake up to the dilemma: how to push back against the “monster” of Chinese aid securitization without, in Nietzsche’s words, becoming a monster itself.
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Hiroaki Shiga is a professor at the Graduate School of International Social Sciences of Yokohama National University and a leading expert on Japan’s ODA policy. A recording of his Nov. 19, 2024 talk at USALI, “Before BRI: Japan’s Overseas Development Assistance,” can be found here.
Suggested Citation:
Hiroaki Shiga, “Japan’s Aid Dilemma: Fighting the Monster Without Becoming One,” USALI Perspectives, 6, No. 7, Feb. 5, 2026, https://usali.org/usali-perspectives-blog/japans-aid-dilemma-fighting-the-monster-without-becoming-one.
The views expressed in USALI Perspectives are those of the authors, and do not represent those of USALI or NYU.
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