Toyota Motor Corporation, which in 2019 announced plans to make Hilux pick-up trucks in the special economic zone, quit Watanabe’s group earlier this year. A spokesperson declined to discuss Toyota’s departure, including its timing. The company’s production plans for Myanmar have been put on hold since the coup, Toyota said.
Some companies, while distancing themselves from the Myanmar military, have remained in the JMA. Among them, Kirin Holdings in February scrapped its long-standing alliance with a conglomerate linked to the Myanmar military after outcry from human rights observers. Masao Imamura, a professor of Southeast Asian history at Japan’s Yamagata University, said that Watanabe was influential in framing Tokyo’s economic policy on Myanmar, and Japanese corporations have relied on his influence and access to do business.
Shameful old man who only chases after money.