Keywords

1 A Term Transcending Borders Between China and Japan

The four-character expression “三位一体”, in both Japanese (san-mi-it-tai) and Chinese (san-wei-yi-ti), was originally a translation of the English term “the Trinity.”1 This term was coined by foreign missionaries proficient in Chinese characters and is believed to have been introduced from China to Japan in the context of Christian theology.2

In contemporary Japan and China, the term trinity is often used in fields unrelated to religion, one of which is development cooperation, the subject of this chapter. The trinity, in the context of Japan’s development cooperation, is a policy originally developed by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI; now renamed the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry: METI) in 1987 to promote industrialization in developing countries. It refers to comprehensive economic cooperation through three measures: technological and financial aid, direct investment, and imports into Japan; and their interrelations (MITI 1987).

Since the 2000s, the trinity has been used to describe similarities and connections in the development cooperation provided by Japan and China. For example, the international political scientist Ping Wang argues that China’s development cooperation today is accomplished through the same linkage of aid, trade, and investment as found in Japan’s trinity decades earlier (Wang 2012, p. 89). Moreover, it has been pointed out that, as the scale of China’s development cooperation grows, the trinity may come to be seen as the “Asian aid model” (Shimomura et al. 2013, p. 270). This is because the combination of government and private sector funding represented by the trinity, now implemented not only by Japan and China but also by emerging aid donors such as India, has already proven to be an effective policy for encouraging the autonomy of recipient countries. This approach contrasts with the approach of donors in Europe and the U.S. that clearly distinguishes between government assistance and private investment (Shimomura et al. 2013; Saidi and Wolf 2011).3

However, in focusing on similarities and connections, existing research has failed to appreciate how the trinity has evolved since it was coined in 1987. This chapter questions how the meaning of the trinity emerged and how it has changed over time. It endeavors to illuminate the often-neglected semantic shifts of the trinity and the politico-economic changes that prompted them. Through this examination, the chapter aims to gain a deeper understanding of development cooperation offered by Japan and China, respectively, which has given rise to diverse interpretations of the same term, and to illuminate the contemporary significance of the trinity.

The analysis in this chapter proceeds in the following sequence. Firstly, it overviews government statements and official documents to describe the nature of trinity policies formulated in Japan at the end of the 1980s. Secondly, it surveys the literature in Chinese to reveal when and how the trinity was introduced from Japan into China. Thirdly, it explores the process by which researchers came to focus on the trinity and use it to describe Japan’s and China's development cooperation approaches. While attracting little attention in Japan during the 1980s even while it was being implemented in practice, the trinity became a focus for debate with the rise of China as an emerging aid donor. In the process, the trinity has changed from a policy for mitigating the dissatisfaction of developing countries in the Japanese context to a set of measures for achieving a win–win relationship of development cooperation in the Chinese context.

2 The Birth and Decline of Trinity in Japan

2.1 The Trinity of MITI: A Declaration of Intent to Change Trade Relations

In March 1987, Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) released The Present Status and Issues in Economic Cooperation (1986),4 presenting the Trinity as a policy for comprehensive economic cooperation comprising “aid, investment, and trade” (MITI 1987, p. 2). This document (the “1987 White Paper”) is considered the first official document related to the term the trinity (Shimomura 2020, p. 137; Maruyama 2018). Since there is no clear definition for the trinity, this section will unravel its formation from the related historical background and policies.

The meanings underlying the trinity did not suddenly appear in 1987. In editions of The Present Status and Issues in Economic Cooperation published before 1987, trade involving the government, private sector, and partner country was a frequent component of the economic development presented by MITI.5 Moreover, the policy of “comprehensive economic cooperation,” organically integrating multiple forms of economic cooperation, such as government development assistance, trade, and investment, had been emphasized from the late 1970s (MITI 1976–1986, pp. 1–2). It is clear from the similarities in language that the trinity is an extension of established policy discussing “comprehensive economic cooperation.”

The core meaning of the trinity changed in 1987, however, with the scope of “trade” limited to “imports” from the partner country (MITI 1988, p. 2; 1990, p. 148; 1992, p. 127). The background that brought about such changes can be traced back to the “Plaza Accord” of September 1985. The appreciation of the yen served as a catalyst for Japanese manufacturing industries to actively engage in foreign production. Concurrently, there was a significant increase in imports from overseas (MITI 1987, p. 127).

In addition to the overseas expansion of Japanese companies, another pivotal factor in the mid-1980s was the requests from developing countries—especially ASEAN countries—from the second half of the 1980s. At the time, countries such as South Korea and Taiwan were actively participating in the international division of labor. ASEAN countries, meanwhile, were facing not only a temporary slump in product prices and the burden of accumulated debt, which had been exacerbated due to oil shocks from the late 1970s onward but also a persistently unfavorable trade balance with Japan (Shimomura 2020; MITI 1986). In this context, Thailand and other ASEAN countries demanded a radical revision of Japan’s industrialization support and trade relationships. These demands were focused on the three fields of “exports to Japan, including improved market access,” “direct foreign investment,” and “technology transfer” (MITI 1986, pp. 87–90), and prompted the prototype for the trinity.

MITI responded to these demands from the ASEAN countries with internal deliberations about the New Asian Industrial Development Plan (hereinafter, the “New AID Plan”)6 aimed at fostering export-based industries in developing countries that could attract foreign capital.7 In January 1987, Hajime Tamura, the Minister of International Trade and Industry, embarked on a tour of the ASEAN countries. He concluded that conventional economic cooperation prioritizing development (irrigation facilities, power plants, and the like) was not adequately contributing to progress in the ASEAN region. On his final stop of the tour in Thailand, he announced the New AID Plan, reportedly “in splendid style, greeted with great anticipation from each country” (Yomiuri Shimbun 1987a, b).

In the 1987 White Paper mentioned above, Tamura characterized this New AID Plan as “designed to achieve cooperation in the trinity of aid, investment, and trade.” This represented the first appearance of the term trinity in the development context (MITI 1987, p. 2). Apparently, Tamura was largely responsible for this choice of expression.8

The New AID Plan designated three phases for achieving the trinity: (1) the selection of suitable regions and promising industries based on industrialization strategies appropriate to the characteristics of each country; (2) surveys of the selected regions or industries and proposals for specific cooperation measures involving factors such as the industry base, locations, markets, and the investment and loan environment; and (3) the implementation of multifaceted, concrete cooperation across a range of elements, including infrastructure, human capital and financial capital. This was the original definition of the trinity in the Japanese context. These steps aimed to develop local industries that could attract foreign currency and to encourage direct Japanese investment in supporting growth in local export industries in anticipation of future imports into Japan. The underlying premise was that the partner country would make autonomous efforts to establish and improve its investment environment (MITI 1988, 165–166). This background indicates that the trinity was an initiative aimed at supporting efficient industrialization in developing countries by applying Official Development Assistance (ODA) initiatives to achieve economic growth by implementing measures to support potential export industries. This was also a transfer of the experience Japan itself had gained in achieving economic growth (Abe 2013, p. 781).

2.2 Challenges Faced by the Trinity in Practice

However, the trinity formulated in 1987 had gradually disappeared from development cooperation-related policy debate in Japan by the early 1990s, possibly because the trinity had proven extremely difficult to achieve as scheduled. Thailand (1987), Indonesia (1988), the Philippines (1988), and China (1989) became recipient countries under the trinity policy. However, the actual implementation in those countries was limited to technological cooperation, such as surveys of industrial sites and development plans, and dispatching and training specialists (MITI 1989, p. 81).

According to the explanation given by MITI, these difficulties arose from the system used to manage financial aid—yen loans (See Chap. 12)—from the Japanese government (Abe 2013). Yen loans were presented as necessary to establish and improve the investment environment in the partner country as part of the implement of New AID Plan. Through yen loans, economic and social infrastructure (power, transport, communications, etc.) can be built, which will also encourage direct investment by Japanese companies. However, at the time, yen loans were discussed mainly through the so-called “four ministry/agency structure” comprising the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, MITI, and the Economic Planning Agency. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly objected to “the use of yen loans to encourage investment by Japanese companies being publicly proclaimed as Japanese government policy” because of bilateral trade conflicts between Japan and the U.S., which continued through the 1980s. While the rapid increase in Japan’s exports to the U.S. had already been raised as a problem, the U.S. had expressed concerns that its domestic markets might effectively be left with the burden of importing products after production increases resulting from Japan’s New AID Plan, because Japan, as of the late 1980s, had not yet opened its domestic markets to products from developing countries (Orr 1990). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs feared that the trinity would be perceived as a Japanese government policy to promote the foreign expansion of its private sector companies, and further fan the flames of U.S. discontent (Shimomura and Wang 2012, pp. 124–125).

For this reason, the focus of the trinity formulated by MITI eventually shifted to technological cooperation with maximum utilization of agencies and associations under MITI control, such as the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS) (Abe 2013, pp. 808–809).9 In 1992, MITI attempted to promote industrialization in Asia primarily through “policy cooperation” rather than cooperation measures centered on ODA. Policy cooperation refers to measures designed to enhance the ability of the government of a developing country to formulate and implement medium- and long-term development strategies through continuous dialogue between MITI and the developing country government (Abe 2013, p. 782).

With the phasing out of the New AID Plan since 1992, the policy of the trinity outlined in the 1987 White Paper virtually vanished from Japan’s official documents (Trinidad 2013, p. 58; Shimomura and Wang 2012, p. 122). Moreover, MITI began to discuss the environmental issues associated with industrialization (MITI 1991, 1992), frequently advocating a completely different kind of trinity: “environment, energy, and economic growth.”10 In this way, the trinity fell into disuse as a term to describe development cooperation policies.

3 “The Trinity” in 1980s China: Limited Presence

3.1 Development Projects During the Diplomatic “Honeymoon” Period

After the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China in 1972, there was frequent correspondence between public officials in each country’s central governments, as well as among intellectuals and businesspeople. At the end of the 1970s, the Chinese government switched to an agenda of “reform and opening-up.” Following such a change, the experience of Japan—belonging to the Eastern cultural sphere, with many common cultural similarities—was regarded as a valuable point of reference for the further development of China (Ito 2022). Thus, during this 1980s “honeymoon” period of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, Japan, having just experienced a period of rapid economic growth, became a benchmark for policymaking across numerous aspects of economic growth and industrial development within China.

At the end of January 1987, in the context of this active exchange between the two countries, Japan introduced the New AID Plan to China. At this time, the Chinese government was in the process of introducing foreign capital into the 14 coastal cities that had been designated for stage one National Economic and Technological Development Zones in 1984. Of these, Qingdao City in Shandong Province, where construction of one such zone had begun in 1985, was selected as the location for the New AID Plan in April 1987 through discussions between Japan and China at the senior official level (Nihon Keizai Shimbun 1987). In March 1989, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) announced the results of the Survey of the Development Plans for the Qingdao Export Processing Zone. The agency assessed Qingdao City as having conditions suitable for investment by foreign companies and approved efforts by the Qingdao City government to further improve aspects such as communications and transport (JICA 1989, p. 39). As already mentioned, the implementation of the trinity policy in China focused mostly on surveys of the investment environment.

3.2 A Swift Policy Introduction and Its Lack of Impact

The trinity of the 1987 White Paper was promptly introduced into China in a paper, “The New State of Japanese Foreign Direct Investment” (Ling 1988), describing the context and characteristics of the spread of Japan’s foreign direct investment, and introducing the trinity as an approach and a policy. This paper summarizes the content of the trinity as measures to improve the quality and increase the quantity of economic cooperation by the Japanese government, increase the amount of foreign direct investment, increase the amount of industrial products imported from developing countries, and related measures. It also singled out direct investment as the core of the trinity, arguing that it boosts productivity and technical and management capabilities in developing countries, increases the effectiveness of economic aid, and is a necessary condition for Japanese consumers to accept industrial products manufactured in developing countries (Ling 1988, p. 24).

In July 1988, the trinity was also presented in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China. In the article, the trinity is characterized as a new foreign economic cooperation strategy implemented by Japan to promote economic growth in developing countries, especially in the Asia Pacific region. The specific components of the strategy are described as (1) the quantitative increase and qualitative improvement of Japan’s ODA; (2) the establishment of investment and insurance schemes to promote foreign direct investment by Japanese private-sector companies; (3) support for developing countries to export and capture foreign currency through trade surpluses; and (4) support for developing countries to formulate industrialization strategies focused on export. This description by the People’s Daily is not so much an explanation of the trinity itself, but rather a summary of the contents of the 1987 White Paper.

What is especially noteworthy is that both the paper mentioned above and the People’s Daily article were authored by the same person: Professor Emeritus of Fukui Prefectural University Xingguang Ling. Ling, born in Japan in 1933, worked as an academic interpreter and Japanese economic specialist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Institute of World Economy during the 1980s. He also participated in meetings of the Japan–China Working Group for the Exchange of Economic Information (1981–present), an organization that significantly influenced China’s “reform and opening-up” program from the time of its inauguration (Ito 2020). According to Ling, the interaction between Japan and China in the 1980s, while balancing the roles of the government and market economy, was focused on policies to promote the domestic development of China’s trade, corporate management, and industry. He recalls that, despite writing several academic papers and newspaper articles discussing the trinity, he never regarded it as an important concept in international cooperation.11

3.3 The Mismatch Between China's Interest and Japan's Approach

The trinity, as a policy of “aid, investment, and trade” made very little impression on China in the 1980s. The reason for this becomes clearer when considering the historical backdrop. First, there was a low level of direct investment in China by Japan. While the levels of Japanese foreign direct investment increased rapidly during the 1980s, it was directed mainly toward the Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) and ASEAN countries. From 1979 to 1990, direct investment in China accounted for no more than 1.1% of all Japanese direct foreign investment (Guo 1999, p. 84). Direct investment in China from countries around the world, including Japan, began to rise rapidly only from the 1990s onward, encouraged by policies to promote the introduction of foreign capital and economic reform beginning with Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 southern tour. As a result, only in the 1990s, long after the arrival of the policy of the trinity in 1987, did China begin to profit significantly from Japanese direct investment and expand imports into Japan.12

Secondly, learning from the development cooperation experience of foreign countries was not a priority for the Chinese government at the time. From the 1960s to the 2010s, China’s development cooperation was invariably directed by government departments related to the economy and trade, with a policy formulation perspective similar in some respects to that of Japan’s MITI (Huang and Hu 2009; Zhou 2008). In that sense, it would have been structurally possible for China to adopt the policy of the trinity presented in the 1987 White Paper for its own development cooperation initiatives. However, during the 1980s, the Chinese government, in response to what it considered the over-expansion of Chinese foreign assistance during the previous decade, had shifted its direction to balance the demands of internationalism with its domestic capacity. As part of this effort, the Chinese government had diminished the scope of the foreign assistance it provided, while emphasizing equality and reciprocity with its partners. Moreover, in 1982, it had downgraded the Ministry of Foreign Economic Liaison, responsible for foreign assistance, to the level of a bureau (Xue and Xiao 2011; Ma 2007). As a result, although the policy of the trinity was introduced to China soon after it first appeared in Japan in 1987, it garnered little attention there.

However, renewed attention to the trinity was sparked by the series of development cooperation reforms carried out in China from the mid-1990s, along with an increase in interest in Japan’s development cooperation among Chinese researchers. The trinity has now become discussed as a common thread in Japan and China’s development cooperation policies (see, for example, Shimomura and Wang 2015; Wang 2013). The next section describes how this attention from researchers breathed new life into the trinity in the context of historical change.

4 Reevaluation of the Trinity as China Rises

4.1 Attention to Japan’s Experiences in Light of China's Overseas Expansion

The 1990s was a decade of transition for China’s foreign trade and development cooperation. The Chinese government engaged in various structural reforms, including the privatization of state-run enterprises (1993) and the establishment of the Export–Import Bank of China (1994). At the end of 1994, Wu Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, developed the Grand Strategy of Economy and Trade. This strategy indicated the direction of China’s economic relations and growth based on foreign trade for the second half of the 1990s (Li 1995). A system of preferential loans, introduced in 1995 as an extension of this series of reforms, became an important component of China’s development cooperation. Consequently, China emerged from the structural reforms with stronger links between aid, investment, and trade. In such a process, development cooperation had mainly been regarded as a means for promoting economic growth.

In this context, the 1990s saw an increase in Chinese researchers’ investigations into Japan’s ODA. According to Ping Wang, who has reviewed several representative research papers of this type, Chinese researchers regarded the trinity as an important characteristic of Japan’s ODA, distinguishing Japan from European countries and the U.S., which clearly differentiated aid and trade (Wang 2013).

However, most Chinese researchers do not refer to the 1987 White Paper and have different explanations regarding the origin of the trinity.13 While the definition is ambiguous, the trinity is generally recognized as a government policy in Japan's traditional development cooperation, prioritizing economic benefits. Essentially, for Chinese scholars, the trinity referred to the use of yen-denominated loans by Japan to build economic infrastructure in developing countries and target cheap labor at a time when Japanese companies were investing in high-profit manufacturing industries (Zhou 2010a, p. 53). In contrast, Japan's development cooperation since 1990 is seen to have abandoned such a tradition by leaning toward the cultivation of political rather than economic power (see, for example, Zhou 2010b; Zhang 2012, p. 80).

In this way, the meaning of the trinity was redefined by Chinese researchers to refer to the promotion of economic growth through the simultaneous implementation of aid, investment, and trade. Due to the absence of a historical conceptual examination, this understanding overlooks the fact that in the context of Japan in 1987, “trade” referred “imports into Japan”. The opinions of Chinese researchers are divided regarding this redefinition of the meaning of the trinity. Some (for example, Lin 1993) criticize it as excessively focused on Japan’s own national interests. This is similar to the criticism leveled at the commercial characteristics of Japan’s development cooperation by European and U.S. researchers (Shimomura and Wang 2012).

In contrast, some researchers perceive the effects of the trinity in a positive light, focusing on the similarities between Japan’s and China’s development cooperation since the 1990s. Wang (2013, p. 169) points out that present-day China “is engaged in securing the supply of resources and actively pursuing trade and investment to open-up markets for Chinese goods even as it provides economic assistance, in an identical approach” to Japan’s policy of the trinity. Wang characterizes the policies of the trinity as the “priming” that eventually led to win–win relationships between Japan and the recipient countries, with financial assistance from the Japanese government encouraging direct investment by private sector companies (Wang 2012, p. 85). Based on this perception, the experience of the trinity is seen as a valuable basis for justifying China’s overseas expansion by Chinese companies as it furthers not only its own interests but also those of its partners (Huang and Zhang 2016).

4.2 Revisiting the Trinity in Japan and Discovering Its Universal Value

This debate regarding the similarities between Japanese and Chinese development cooperation was not limited to China. Since the 2000s, an increasing body of research has sought to compare China’s expanding development cooperation with that of traditional donor countries. One widely discussed topic is the characteristics shared by the Japanese and Chinese approaches. Specifically, the policy of the trinity, while characteristic of Japan’s development assistance, has been used to help understand the development cooperation of China in the present day (see, for example, Johnston and Rudyak 2017; Bräutigam 2011).

In fact, the rise of China as an emerging donor is thought to be the catalyst responsible for the reemergence of discussion on the trinity in Japan.14 Japanese researchers studying the trinity generally make a comparison with China. While some researchers discuss the differences between Chinese and Japanese development cooperation based on the trinity, others focus on common characteristics. The former includes researchers who claim that China’s development cooperation is based not on “the trinity” but rather on a “quaternity,” adding various fourth principles.15

A representative example of researchers exploring the universal value of the trinity can be found in the work of Yasutami Shimomura (Shimomura 2020; Shimomura and Wang 2015; Shimomura et al. 2013; Shimomura and Wang 2012). In these studies, the focus of the trinity changes over time. For example, while Shimomura et al. (2013) emphasize common aspects between Japanese and Chinese approaches of the trinity, Shimomura and Wang (2015) highlight the creation of knowledge based on the experience of China. The latter claims that the significance of Japan’s policy of the trinity is not to propose a perfect model, but to furnish “Chinese foreign aid experts with opportunities to reexamine and improve China’s own economic cooperation strategy” (Shimomura and Wang 2015, 15). Furthermore, Shimomura (2020) analyzes the “external pressures” that forced MITI to formulate the policy of the trinity. This study suggests that such external pressures, including the aforementioned demands by ASEAN countries to expand imports into Japan, contribute to the universality of the trinity as a model (Shimomura 2020, pp. 130–141). In other words, the trinity in the 1987 White Paper—providing a model for progressively moving from “infrastructure construction,” to “attracting direct investment,” then to “export-based industrialization”—was a reflection of the concerns of ASEAN countries. Thus, the perspectives of developing countries were incorporated into the trinity, which makes it an approach that later resonated with China and other Asian countries (Shimomura 2020).

As mentioned above, while the research interests of Chinese scholars differ, the meaning of the trinity has also been explored in Japan as a characteristic feature of development cooperation. Japanese researchers, while harboring concerns about China's rise, can be observed reassessing the value of their own development cooperation efforts. Looking at the trends of the 1980s, the evaluation of Japan's trinity has changed with the times. In the 1987 White Paper, the trinity served as a means for Japan to fulfill its responsibility for the economic growth of developing countries. However, today, the trinity is seen as an effective mechanism for pursuing economic benefit, which is a distinctive feature of Japan and China in the context of development cooperation. This shift is not only a response to ongoing discussions in China but also a consequence of changes in Japan's position brought about by a period of economic downturn and the critical assessment of ODA during the 1990s (see Chapter XX, this volume). These factors have reshaped the discourse in Japan over the past two decades, giving priority to the efficiency of development cooperation and the protection of national interests. Consequently, this shift has established a common ground for discussions between Japan and China concerning the trinity.

5 Development Cooperation as Seen Through the Changing Concept of the Trinity

This chapter has elucidated the processes whereby the policy of the trinity set forth in the 1987 White Paper changed over time and was utilized in the different contexts of Japanese and Chinese research from a policy for mitigating the dissatisfaction of developing countries to a set of measures for achieving a win–win relationship of development cooperation. The reemergence of debate on the trinity in the context of Japan’s development cooperation was due to a renewed focus by researchers on the relationship between aid, investment, and trade within the context of the rise of China.

Unlike other Japanese lexicons such as “kaizen” and “hito-zukuri,” the trinity had a short “expiration date” as a policy but still improved Japan’s development cooperation. During the second half of the 1980s, the prominent increase in Japanese direct investment and the transfer of production bases to Thailand and Malaysia significantly eased local discontent in those countries (Shimomura 2020). In this sense, even if the policies of the trinity were not implemented as originally planned, they may have actually performed their intended role of resolving issues in developing countries by communicating the Japanese government’s policies to Japanese companies.

The semantic transformation of the trinity illustrates the potential function of meanings that have fallen out of usage. The relationship between the trinity and the measures it evaluates is like that between a container and its contents: the shape of the container has not changed, but different contents have been poured into it with each changing era. Reviewing the contents of the trinity in each era enables us to discover the overlooked issues and ways of thinking about development cooperation.

Today, the trinity has become a term used to advocate the effectiveness of development cooperation by integrating “aid, investment, and trade,” leading to resulting win–win relationships. However, emphasizing the significance of mutual benefit may obscure the potential conflict of interest in development cooperation. In contrast, the trinity presented in the 1987 White Paper was not primarily aimed at actively pursuing mutual interests but represented the outcome of a response to the demands of developing countries, including the opening of Japanese markets. Despite its passive formation process, its implementation effectively promoted Japan's development cooperation at that time and benefited Japan's national interests in terms of results. In today's context, where actively pursuing national interests is commonplace, the 1987 trinity can be seen as a reference point when considering the uncertainty of outcomes resulting from a profit-seeking stance.

Notes

  1. 1.

    A well-known Christian expression describing the manifestation of a single god in three forms: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

  2. 2.

    The first record of this translation can be traced back to 1623, when Giulio Aleni, an Italian missionary active around the end of China’s Ming dynasty, used the term in his work The General Outline of Western Knowledge (Xixuefan), written in Chinese (Database of Chinese Classic Ancient Books 2023). Such works on Christianity written in Chinese had a profound impact on the Japanese language from the nineteenth century onward (Suzuki 2006). Though The General Outline of Western Knowledge was banned by the Edo Shogunate (1603–1868), it was circulated widely enough to expose Japanese intellectuals to Western thought and knowledge (Koso 1974). This context gives rise to the inference that the term the trinity arrived in Japan via the works of missionaries written in Chinese. Other evidence also suggests that the Japanese expression san-mi-it-tai, used, as in Chinese, to describe Christian doctrine, first appeared in Masanao Nakamura’s Japanese translation of On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, published in 1872 under the title Jiyūno Kotowari (De Wolf 2010, p. 114).

  3. 3.

    Also see Dole et al. (2021), Kobayashi (2007), Marukawa (2007). However, the difference between Japan and the West in this context is seen as an analysis focusing on the inception of untied aid in the 1970s and the efforts of Western countries that led to its mainstreaming and institutionalization since the 1990s. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Western development cooperation initiatives didn't solely involve government assistance but also included various policies aimed at promoting private investment through the former. For instance, there were numerous efforts to enhance the competitiveness of domestic companies through foreign aid funds, such as the UK government's “Aid and Trade Provision” (1977) or the “Tied Aid War Chest” (1985) introduced by US President Ronald W. Reagan.

  4. 4.

    Keizai Kyoryoku no Genjo to Mondaiten. commonly known as the White Paper on Economic Cooperation, was one of a series published every year from 1958 to 2001. Without the official status of White Papers reported to cabinet meetings, they were used as PR materials to announce approaches taken by MITI officials (Abe 2013, p. 771).

  5. 5.

    In editions of The Present Status and Issues in Economic Cooperation published from 1970 onward, the status of Japan’s economic cooperation was described in terms of three general categories: “economic cooperation directed at the capital base (both government and private sector),” “economic cooperation through technology,” and “economic cooperation through trade.”.

  6. 6.

    In negotiations to revive the budget for the fiscal year 1986, the New AID Plan was allotted a total of nine trillion yen in research project expenses (Asahi Shimbun, 1986).

  7. 7.

    The importance of fostering export industries in developing countries was recognized by MITI from the mid-1980s (MITI 1985, p. 211). The awareness of dissatisfaction and pressure from ASEAN countries can be seen as responsible for the formulation of specific measures in the New AID Plan.

  8. 8.

    Records of debate in the Diet around 1987 indicate that “the trinity” was a favorite expression of Hajime Tamura across several different contexts, including “the trinity of the Ministry of Finance, MITI, and the Ministry of Labor” (1986) and “the trinity of the ruling party, the opposition, and the government” (1988).

  9. 9.

    Actually, transforming the results of surveys conducted under the New AID Plan into reality in the investment environment proved to be a long and arduous task, as exemplified in the case of Malaysia’s high-tech industrial zone, which did not begin production until 1996 (Nikkei Sangyō Shinbun 1996).

  10. 10.

    No. 16, Committee on the Budget, House of Representatives, 120th Plenary Session of the Diet, February 22, 1991.

  11. 11.

    Interview with Xingguang Ling (October 22, 2021, at the Japan China Science, Technology and Culture Center, Tokyo).

  12. 12.

    That being said, the role of Japan’s suggestions on industrial policy in the 1980s cannot be disregarded. For example, at the Japan–China Working Group for Exchange of Economic Information in 1988, Japanese industry specialists and businesspersons explained that it was a cycle of capital investment, profit retention and reinvestment that had supported Japan’s remarkable development. They further urged the Chinese government to utilize the advantages of a planned economy to focus on textiles, light industrial products, and the food industry, while actively fostering industries with the potential to provide the next generation of export products (Ito 2020, pp. 69–70). These policy proposals likely contributed to the development of China’s manufacturing industries from the 1990s onward.

  13. 13.

    For example, Xide Jin, a pioneering Chinese researcher into Japan’s ODA, defined the trinity as “an official Japanese concept used up to the mid-1980s, referring to economic cooperation integrating trade, investment, and aid” (Jin 2000, p. 85). Baogen Zhou, a well-known economist at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, indicated that the trinity of “aid, investment, and trade” was the key that enabled post-war Japan to achieve rapid economic growth, particularly in the years from 1954 to 1972.

  14. 14.

    Yasutami Shimomura, a leading researcher on the trinity, describes how he first became interested in related policies in the 1980s, when he was working in Thailand as a member of the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF). He experienced for himself how the proposal of the trinity had sparked an increase in direct investment in Thailand by Japanese companies, leading to the amelioration of diplomatic tensions between Japan and Thailand. However, it was not until the 2000s, when the trinity had become a focus of attention in China as well, that Shimomura commenced dedicated research into the trinity (from an interview with Yasutami Shimomura on February 8, 2022, at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development).

  15. 15.

    For example, Inada (2013, p. 108) sees this as the existing contents of the trinity with the addition of the “dispatch of laborers,” while Enomoto adds “economic cooperation”—comprising “construction contracting, the provision of labor, and design consulting services” (Enomoto 2017, p. 24).