Whether Japan has Realized its National Interests through the ODA to China: A Study on Japan’s ODA to China

This paper introduces the history of Japan’s ODA to China, and examines the realisation of national interests through both quantitative and qualitative methods. Even though most scholars acknowledged that providing foreign aid is always connected to the national interests of the donor countries, it should be further discussed what those national interests are and how those interests are realised. This paper therefore summarised the national role conception and categories of national interests of Japan regarding the ODA policy to China through narrative analysis based on the role theory. In general, Japan’s ODA to China has achieved some of the diplomatic objectives successfully, but failed to achieve all.