Editing Nobusuke Kishi (section)

===Pursuit of an Asian Development Fund===
[[File:Jawaharlal Nehru presenting welcome address to N. Kishi, Prime Minister of Japan.jpg|thumb|Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] presenting Welcome Address to Kishi, New Delhi, 24 May 1957]]
In the first year of Kishi's term, Japan joined the [[United Nations Security Council]], paid war reparations to [[Indonesia]], signed a new commercial treaty with [[Australia]], and signed peace treaties with [[Czechoslovakia]] and [[Poland]]. In 1957, Kishi presented a plan for a Japanese-dominated Asian Development Fund (ADF), which was to operate under the slogan "Economic Development for Asia by Asia", calling for Japan to invest millions of yen in Southeast Asia.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=398}} With access to markets in China and North Korea cut off due to Cold War polarization, Japanese and American leaders alike looked to Southeast Asia as a market for Japanese goods and source of raw materials.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=387}} Moreover, the Americans wanted more aid to Asia to spur economic growth that would stem the appeal of Communism, but were disinclined to spend the money themselves.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|pp=395-396}} The prospect of Japan spending some $500 million US in low interest loans and aid projects in Southeast Asia had the benefit from Kishi's viewpoint of improving his standing in Washington, and giving him more leverage in his talks to revise the [[U.S.-Japan Security Treaty]].{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=396}}

In pursuit of the ADF, Kishi visited India, Pakistan, [[Burma]], [[Thailand]], Ceylon, and Taiwan in May 1957, asking the leaders of those states to join the ADF, but with the exception of Taiwan, which agreed to join, the other nations gave equivocal answers.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|pp=398-400}} In November, Kishi once again toured Southeast Asia to promote the idea of an ADF, this time visiting South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries, all of which Japan had attacked and/or occupied during World War II, also expressed ambivalence or disdain toward joining the proposed framework, with the sole exception of Laos, which was in desperate need of foreign aid at that time.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|pp=403-404}} Even in countries that were not occupied by Japan like India, Ceylon, and Pakistan, Kishi encountered obstacles. Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] told Kishi during his visit to New Delhi that he wanted his nation to be neutral in the Cold War, and given that Japan was allied to the United States, joining the ADF would be in effect aligning India with the Americans.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=399}} During his visit to Karachi, the Pakistani Prime Minister [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]] told Kishi that he thought of himself as a "human being rather than an Asian first", and preferred bilateral over multilateral aid because a multilateral aid framework would put participating countries into competition with each other over aid distribution.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009|p=399}} In sum, bad memories of Japan's wartime depredations in the region, a suspicion of Japanese motives, an unwillingness to enter into neo-colonial relationship with Japan as suppliers of raw materials, Cold War neutralism, and a fear that America was secretly pulling the strings all contributed to the failure of Kishi's ambitious plans to create an Asian economic block reminiscent of the "[[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]]" that Japan had claimed to be pursuing in World War II.{{sfn|Hoshiro|2009}} Ultimately, even the United States was lukewarm about Kishi's project, so it was shelved for the time being, although it was later partially revived in the form of the [[Asian Development Bank]].<ref>{{cite book|last=McCawley|first=Peter|title=Banking on the Future of Asia and the Pacific: 50 Years of the Asian Development Bank|publisher=Asian Development Bank|isbn=978-92-9257-875-6|date=2017|pages=31–32}}</ref>