TOKYO, Dec 17 — A Japanese former politician who campaigned to bring billions http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/12/09/JapanMyanmar.pdf of dollars of investment from some of Japan’s top companies to Myanmar has urged Japan to endorse its military regime, saying the nation’s coup leader has “grown fantastically as a human being,” while praising his “democratisation efforts.”
His position also poses a dilemma for some of Japan’s largest companies who sponsor the JMA – a kind of lobby group and information exchange for Myanmar investment in Japan that he founded, business leaders and activists say. These JMA members, like other multinationals, are under pressure from activists to step away from their investments in Myanmar, including in the special economic zone that Watanabe helped establish.
Toyota Motor Corp, 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.
Kirin decided to terminate the partnership as the coup was against its human rights policy, a spokesperson said. The company declined to comment on Watanabe’s remarks. In May, a month before the JMA meeting, Yusuke Watanabe, Watanabe’s son and the association’s secretary general, wrote an article published in the Diplomat saying Japan should act as a bridge to Myanmar’s junta rather than following the Western policy of “regime change”.