Conference Program

This paper explores the place of the EU and NATO in Japanese security policy, especially under the Kishida administration. In particular, the paper examines Japan’s expectations regarding the role these two partners can play in helping Tokyo address its key security concerns in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. In the first instance, the paper investigates Japan’s conceptualization of key security threats and zooms in the corresponding policy responses to tackle these. Thereafter, it examines Tokyo’s strategic thinking on partners’ role in contributing to Japan’s security needs with an emphasis on Kishida’s policies towards the EU and NATO, and key minilaterals. By drawing on key official documents of the Kishida administration, the paper demonstrates how the changing nature of security threats, notably, the blurred dividing line between traditional and non-traditional security, and the intensification of gray-zone conflicts and hybrid threats, is pushing Japan to rethink the value of its security partnerships. This rethinking includes two main perspectives: an issue-area and a geographical perspective. While a further deepening of Japan’s defense ties with established regional partners follows a long-term trend, the rapid intensification of Japan’s security alignments with geographically distant players, notably the EU and NATO, signifies an important evolution in Japanese strategic thinking on partnerships in the context of the changing nature of security threats.

ASEAN member states have long sought to balance their relationships with China, the US, and American allies in the Asia-Pacific. However, with escalating tensions in the region, it has become increasingly difficult for these states to navigate the US-China rivalry. This paper addresses whether the balancing efforts by the ASEAN states vis-a-vis the US and China can be maintained given the glowing insecurity of the region. The paper examines the interplay between the national interests of ASEAN states, their territorial disputes with China, and the intricate dynamics of economic dependence and asymmetric power relations with Beijing. The transactional component of their balancing act with the great powers could emerge as the decisive factor shaping the ASEAN states’ behavior. The cooperation with Japan in terms of strengthening capabilities, especially in the case of Vietnam and Indonesia, shows that the security considerations have created an alignment of interests between those states. The question here is whether such cooperation with Japan will be enough to stave off the need to choose a side in the regional rivalry.

Japan has rapidly approached to Taiwan in recent years despite it broke off its diplomatic relations with the country and recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole government representing China in 1972. Why has Japan pursued to restore its strategic ties with Taiwan? In order to answer the question, this paper will examine the importance of Taiwan for Japan’s current security need focusing on its economic aspect. In particular, Japan and Taiwan have collaborated to build an alternative supply chain of semiconductors to one Japan created with China. Semiconductor development and productions of semiconductors has emerged as one of the most significant policy agenda for Japan’s strategic strategical outlook because semiconductor is dual-use technology for military and civilian devices. While semiconductors are central components of today’s highly mechanized weaponry, it is the source of wealth generated by all kinds of appliances. This behavior is perhaps consistent with Japan’s security architecture building through alignments with Australia, India and the United Kingdom in recent years in the name of Free and Open Indo-Pacific that has been Japan’s strategic scheme since Sinzo Abe proposed in 2016.

Japan is a critical player in the Indo-Pacific and has repeatedly committed to the principles of freedom, inclusiveness, and rule-based order in the region while recognizing the need to implement United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1325 towards UNSCR 1325 inclusive peace and security efforts which see women as indispensable partners. Several other powers in the region, including the United States and Australia, have since then, laid out National Action Plans as well as promoted Women Peace and Security (WPS) principles however, Japan is far behind on implementing the agenda in any drastic way. The chapter attempts to trace the intersection of socio-cultural factors with geopolitical realities in Japan's recently adopted gendered approach to the Indo-Pacific and analyzes how Japan's foreign policy has begun to involve WPS perspectives, despite challenges of gender inequality domestically.