Recent developments indicate that the pro-China lobby has turned weak within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The changed internal party dynamics is likely to immensely help Prime Minister Fumio Kishida carry forward his defence and foreign policy agenda.
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio gave a resolute call for pursuing “realism diplomacy for a new era” in his Diet deliberations. How strategically innovative and politically effective will it prove in pursuing Tokyo’s national interests in the US–China–Japan calculus?
Japan is manifesting refreshing confidence drawing from its resolve to push the envelope of positive pacifism while determining the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific.
The COVID-19 pandemic has situated the policy conversation on economic security at the centre stage of national security calculus not just in US and Europe but also in Japan. For Japan, it would entail attaining “strategic autonomy” in critical supply chains at the national level, and pursuing “strategic indispensability” at the global level.
Despite change in leadership in Japan, the new Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide looks set to continue the policies of his predecessor, Abe Shinzo. Both domestic and external factors may affect policies.
With Chinese unilateral efforts altering the maritime status quo on the one hand and lack of progress on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula on the other, Japan is revisiting its strategic options.
The SIPRI report on the volume of international arms transfers during 2015-19 highlights the strengths of key strategic partnerships such as Russia-India, US-Japan and China-Pakistan, reinforced by arms trade.
While Japan envisions its role as a leading promoter of rules-based liberal international order, the G20 tested Japan’s leadership in championing the cause of trade liberalisation and resisting protectionism.
As the East Asian regional order becomes fragmented, how is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe managing Tokyo’s strategic interests within the US-Japan-China relations?
