Japan’s international cooperation on smart city development in Asia: International effort beneath the smart rhetoric in India and in Thailand

This article examines smart cities as a locus for international power struggles, emerged at the gap between their discursive and materialised realities. While the body of research on smart cities is growing, most studies focus on their development within individual nation-states. However, the rapidly growing smart city-related market in Emerging Asia does not allow us to overlook its heavily invested nature. In this context, the article analyses smart city projects in India and Thailand, supported by Japanese international development cooperation. The comparison of these case studies reveal that negotiations occur in discursive terms, with neither party ultimately committed to materializing the agreed-upon socio-technical future. The article argues that, in Japanese international cooperation, the concept of smart cities is more of a showcase than a reality, masking the power struggle between donor and host countries to advance their national interests within the imagined geography of the Indo-Pacific. This international perspective adds new insights to existing research on domestic smart city efforts. Smart cities cannot be taken at face value; additionally, its ideological efficacy must be properly acknowledged. The article emphasises the importance of distinguishing between the imagined, technology-driven future and the real impact on local communities.