For a chequebook diplomat, Japan’s cheque does not carry the punch it used to. Tokyo, the world’s mightiest aid donor as recently as 2001, has been slipping alarmingly down the league tables. In 2006, it was pushed into third place by the UK, a country with only about half its economic clout. The way things are going, it could be overtaken by Germany and France as early as this year.

The reasons are twofold. First, Japan is not as rich as it used to be. Its nominal gross domestic product peaked in the second quarter of 1997 and, according to Lehman Brothers, is still 0.4 per cent below that level even today. By contrast, over the same period, nominal GDP in the euro area has swelled by 52 per cent and is up a full 69 per cent in the US.