MITI’s (METI’s) International Industrial Policy toward ASEAN: Developments from the 1980s to the 2000s

This paper, drawing on the authors’ original interviews with relevant stakeholders, examines the evolution of international industrial policies formulated by the Ministry of International Industry and Trade (MITI)—now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) —from the 1980s to the 2000s. In response to shifting global political and economic conditions, including the overseas expansion of Japanese firms, the progress in ASEAN industrialization strategies and the rise of China, MITI’s (METI’s) policies were successively reorganized. including the bilateral New AID Plan to the multilateral initiatives aimed at ASEAN industrial upgrading and regional industrial adjustment and East Asia-wide free trade agreements and regional economic integration. This paper demonstrates that while MITI’s (METI’s) international industrial policies toward ASEAN were implemented and adjusted with the goal of maintaining and strengthening the international production networks established by Japanese firms in the region, Japan has gradually transformed its mindset from “Japan beside Asia” to “Japan within Asia,” a shift that continues to the present.