{"id":11394,"date":"2013-12-17T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T01:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=11394"},"modified":"2014-02-01T22:02:40","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T11:02:40","slug":"the-abbott-strategic-trifecta-2-japan-as-strong-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-abbott-strategic-trifecta-2-japan-as-strong-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"The Abbott strategic trifecta (2): Japan as &#8216;strong ally&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Japanese_cruiser_Ibuki_ca_1910.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11417  aligncenter\" title=\"The Japanese Imperial Navy battlecruiser Ibuki helped escort troops of the 1st AIF to Egypt in 1915.\" alt=\"The Japanese Imperial Navy battlecruiser Ibuki helped escort troops of the 1st AIF to Egypt in 1915.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Japanese_cruiser_Ibuki_ca_1910.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"523\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Japanese_cruiser_Ibuki_ca_1910.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Japanese_cruiser_Ibuki_ca_1910-205x119.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">According to Tony Abbott, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/national-affairs\/policy\/tony-abbott-reaches-out-to-australias-best-friend-in-asia-japan\/story-fn59nm2j-1226736508726\">Japan is Australia\u2019s \u2018best friend in Asia\u2019\u00a0<\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pm.gov.au\/media\/2013-11-28\/joint-press-conference-daw-aung-san-suu-kyi\">a \u2018strong ally\u2019 <\/a>. These are important elements of what this series calls the strategic trifecta\u2014alliance, interests and values\u2014which the Prime Minister has invoked in placing Australia beside Japan and the US in the East China Sea confrontation with China.<\/p>\n<p>In elevating Japan to \u2018strong ally\u2019, Abbott is adding to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/what-will-australia-do-with-japan\/\">what John Howard built<\/a> when he created a strategic partnership with Japan and put the trilateral leg into the US\u2013Japan and the US\u2013Australia alliances.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->This column seconds <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowyinterpreter.org\/post\/2013\/12\/03\/Australia-Japan-Abbott-uses-the-A-word.aspx\">Robert Ayson\u2019s view<\/a> that Abbott\u2019s words take the Australia\u2013Japan relationship to a new level:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Earlier this year, when the Gillard Government\u2019s White Paper was published, we read that the \u2018defence and strategic partnership between Australia and Japan has been strengthened in recent years&#8217;. An almost instant relic, the Gillard era document also made an early reference to \u2018Japan, a US ally\u2019. We will need to watch carefully to see whether Mr Abbott\u2019s comments have changed the logarithm to \u2018Japan, a US and Australian ally.\u2019 Certainly the new government\u2019s approach to Japan has treated it as if it were at the very least an informal ally deserving Australia\u2019s unstinting support.<i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The nature of hackdom is to immediately ask questions, so where should we locate some hesitancies or uncertainties in this new concept of Australia as a strong-staunch-stout-ally of Japan?<\/p>\n<p>If Australia is a \u2018strong ally\u2019 of the US and equally in Abbott\u2019s words, a \u2018strong ally\u2019 of Japan, what&#8217;s the difference between the levels of \u2018strongness\u2019 of the two alliances? The unwavering, almost automatic loyalty that Australia has given the US for 70 years doesn\u2019t transfer to this new ally. To further complicate the equation, what will Australia do for its strong ally Japan that it won\u2019t do for its \u2018strategic partner\u2019 China? Bear in mind that this strategic partnership with China was given formal expression only in April along with the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.xinhuanet.com\/english\/indepth\/2013-04\/16\/c_132313403.htm\">prize of an annual bilateral China\u2013Australia summit<\/a>. \u00a0\u2019Strategic partnership\u2019 has joined \u2018relationship\u2019 as one of those international relations terms that can conceal as much as it explains\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowyinterpreter.org\/post\/2008\/11\/12\/Strategic-friend-or-strategic-enemy.aspx\">Beijing has been teasing and tempting Canberra<\/a> with the strategic partnership lure for years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Japan alliance&#8217; presumably trumps &#8216;China strategic partnership&#8217;, yet the complications keep on\u00a0compounding as these relationships are related to \u2019interests and values\u2019 in Abbott\u2019s trifecta (which will be the topics of the next two columns).<\/p>\n<p>In seeking hesitancies or uncertainties, mark intelligence as one area where the level of \u2018strongness\u2019 will tend to the scrawny. I always defer to the ever-reliable Derek Woolner, but both eyebrows lifted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/reader-response-decoding-the-defence-minister-getting-serious-about-asia\/\">when he mused here last week<\/a> that future revelations from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden might \u2018create an impression that the Five Eyes intelligence community is actually a regional eight (Japan, Singapore and South Korea colluding with the members of the Anglosphere)&#8230;\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Such an impression would underestimate the culture, history and tightness of the Five Eyes system that connects the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And putting Japan and South Korea in the same sentence as the term \u2018intelligence community\u2019 takes you immediately to the venom that bedevils dealings between Seoul and Tokyo.<\/p>\n<p>Plenty of intelligence gets shared between Australia, Japan and the US. But this doesn\u2019t equate to full membership of the Five Eyes family. In support of this assertion, consider <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lawfareblog.com\/2013\/12\/n-s-a-not-so-secret-anymore\/#more-30013\">the judgement of Joel F. Brenner<\/a>, who has sat in the top echelons of US intelligence, dismissing the idea of widening the circle of allies in the Five Eyes club:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Five Eyes nations share a common language, common legal traditions, and united wartime experiences.\u00a0 They also work side-by-side in in one another\u2019s agencies.\u00a0 These arrangements have no parallel and are based on a century of deep trust and experience.\u00a0 It is unrealistic to imagine that Germany and France would suddenly be admitted to the club.<i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If Germany and France can\u2019t make it to full club membership, then neither can Japan. The reference to deep trust and experience brings us to a lot of history between Australia and Japan.\u00a0 Australia knows plenty about Japan but strategic trust is a relatively recent arrival. For more than half of Australia\u2019s first century as a nation, Japan dominated Australia\u2019s military nightmares (even during WWI when Japan was a British ally). The creation of ANZUS as the formal express of the US alliance was as treaty-level reassurance that the Japan terror would never return.<\/p>\n<p>The moment when Australia started to have the confidence to express some levels of strategic trust in Japan arrived during the Fraser Coalition and the Hawke Labor governments. Both governments expressed their backing for the idea that Japan had earned the right to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. If this moment of confidence is placed around 1980, that means Australia has shifted over three decades from strategic confidence through strategic partnership to the Abbot moment of alliance.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott will certainly have lots of pain from China over that ally comment. Nearly as interestingly, however, he might have some work to convince his own electorate, especially when the next leg of the trifecta\u2014interests\u2014steps onto the paddock. It\u2019s quite a change in the Japan narrative as presented to Australians: from the number one economic partner with the peace constitution to the number two economic partner that has become an ally.<\/p>\n<p><em><em>Graeme Dobell is the ASPI journalist fellow. Image via <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Japanese_cruiser_Ibuki_ca_1910.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Tony Abbott, Japan is Australia\u2019s \u2018best friend in Asia\u2019\u00a0and a \u2018strong ally\u2019 . These are important elements of what this series calls the strategic trifecta\u2014alliance, interests and values\u2014which the Prime Minister has invoked &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":11417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,17,135],"class_list":["post-11394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-japan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Abbott strategic trifecta (2): Japan as &#039;strong ally&#039;  | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-abbott-strategic-trifecta-2-japan-as-strong-ally\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Abbott strategic trifecta (2): Japan as &#039;strong ally&#039;  | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"According to Tony Abbott, Japan is Australia\u2019s \u2018best friend in Asia\u2019\u00a0and a \u2018strong ally\u2019 . 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