The Research About The International Humanitarian Aid Of Japan After The Cold War

After the Cold War, influenced by the international situation, foreign humanitarian aid has become a common phenomenon in contemporary international and drawn great attention of all the major countries and international organizations. Humanitarian aid became institutionalized in the1980s and the specialized agencies responsible for humanitarian assistance came up. What’s more, humanitarian aid related strategies and policies were introduced. Since the1990s,with the end of the bipolar structure, many global problems have sprung up, and the international society’s focus on humanitarian aid also increased accordingly. More and more countries and international organizations began to join the international humanitarian aid and the mechanism is also becoming mature gradually.It is worth noting that according to the efficiency of the assistance in this article, the humanitarian aid can be divided into two kinds:emergency humanitarian aid and recovery and development. The former is provided for emergency assistance, also known as "emergency humanitarian aid" or "emergency humanitarian aid". The latter aims to guarantee basic human rights, provide the affected area with post-disaster reconstruction and disaster prevention ability construction. It is considered to be an supplement of emergency humanitarian aid. According to the content of assistance, humanitarian assistance can be divided into aid, medical assistance, technical assistance and development assistance, etc. According to aid body, it can be divided into bilateral and multilateral aid assistance. The main body of bilateral aid is a sovereign country more, at present Britain, the United States, Japan, Denmark and other countries are outstanding in this field. The bodies of the multilateral aid are UNHCR, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN women’s UNICEF, the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, etc.After the Cold War, the international situation has greatly changed. The Japanese government reviewed the foreign policy in the past, and decided to seize opportunities under the new situation and pursue power. Japan’s Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu said in a policy speech, Japan must implement "ambitious diplomacy", join the construction of a new international order. He said:" It is the beginning of a new era now, but the direction of the blueprint is not done, so it is a mixed age with hope and anxiety. Just because in this time, we have to participate in the international order construction and pursue aspiring diplomacy to establish a hopeful new international society." This is the first time the Japanese government clearly put forward to use foreign aid to realize the goal of political power. It is also the beginning of Japan to consciously use foreign aid to pursue soft power. Humanitarian aid as a special part of foreign aid, has become an important tool of the government’s foreign policy.In the1990’s, Japan’s humanitarian aid focuses on personnel and supplies, mainly to provide some daily necessities, such as tents, blankets, water purifiers, generators, sleeping MATS, etc. After entering the21st century, the Japanese government also increased the disaster coordination, security and logistics services, and disaster preparedness, etc. After the disaster, Japan’s foreign ministry, according to the specific situation of the affected countries, will send aid teams to the affected countries or areas affected. Rescuers can be divided into four kinds:rescue teams and medical teams, specialists and self-defense forces. The Iraq crisis in2003and the Indian Ocean tsunami in2004, China’s Wenchuan earthquake in2008and in west Africa the Ebola virus last year, both in terms of materials and personnel, the Japanese government has played a more active role in these crises.In the process of its development, Japan’s humanitarian aid has gradually formed its own characteristics:disaster relief and disaster prevention. Due to the fact that Japanese is a disaster-prone country, Japan’s rescues not only include the material but also extends to personnel, technology, experience. For example, after the Wenchuan earthquake, China and Japan started to cooperate on the earthquake disaster prevention, which was of great significance to these two disaster-prone countries.In2011, the Japanese experienced the painful Tokyo earthquake, and followed by the Fukushima crisis, which tarnished Japan’s international image. Even in such an embarrassing situation, the Japanese government was still not stingy in humanitarian aid. As for its reason, there are mainly three:first, through the humanitarian aid can improve its international image, increase their international voice. Compared with the high cost of economic aid, it is low-cost, quick to evaluate and popular; Second,it can meet the demands of the Japanese diplomatic. Africa and Southeast Asia is Japan’s two importance supporters for permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Japan’s policy has profound political intention; third, build an Asia-pacific order dominated by Japan to be a dominant spokesman.Although the Japanese government’s humanitarian aid mechanism has been relatively mature, it still faces many challenges, such as the legal norms, personnel security, aid effect etc. But the development of anything is not plain sailing and it needs the inexhaustible efforts of the Japanese government. The study of Japan for humanitarian aid also has certain reference significance for the Chinese government.