An in-depth examonation of Japan's relations with Africa, this text details Japan's political, economic and diplomatic relations with sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to the early 1990s. It analyses how Japan's dependence on raw materials from South Africa made it impossible for Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s to support other African states in their fight against the minority government and its policy of apartheid. Case studies of Tanzania and Nigeria dissect Japan's trade, aid and investment policies in sub-Saharan Africa more widely.

Now fifty years on, with significantly more primary references available,Kweku Ampiah's study provides a much-needed in-depth re-evaluation of the conference as a whole, focusing in particular on the external influences and preoccupations impacting on the participants seen through three case studies involving the US,UK and Japan.

The authors argue that with the election of the Abe Government in December 2012, Japanese politics has entered a radically new phase they describe as the "2012 Political System." The system began with the return to power of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), after three years in opposition, but in a much stronger electoral position than previous LDP-based administrations in earlier decades. Moreover, with the decline of previously endemic intra-party factionalism, the LDP has united around an essentially nationalist agenda never absent from the party's ranks, but in the past was generally...