{"id":73218,"date":"2022-06-16T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T20:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=73218"},"modified":"2022-07-11T11:52:40","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T01:52:40","slug":"australia-and-japan-as-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-and-japan-as-allies\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia and Japan as allies"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australia is removing the qualifications from its quasi-alliance with Japan.<\/p>\n

The visit to Japan<\/a> by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles is another step in the fading of the qualifiers: \u2018quasi-alliance\u2019<\/a>, \u2018small \u201ca\u201d ally\u2019<\/a> and \u2018alliance lite\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The qualifiers apply because this is a pact without a treaty\u2014no formal pledge to go to war together.<\/p>\n

The quasi-alliance moniker describes the third leg of the trilateral, supporting the US\u2013Japan alliance and the US\u2013Australia alliance.<\/p>\n

The small \u2018a\u2019 and lite descriptors fade because over the past two decades Japan has risen to become a defence partner for Australia that ranks beside New Zealand and Britain.<\/p>\n

Japan sits on the second tier, with the traditional Anglo allies, below the peak where the US presides as the prime and paramount ally. The chatter grows about whether to admit Japan to the ultimate Anglo club, the Five<\/a> Eyes<\/a> intelligence-sharing<\/a>\u00a0partnership<\/a>, comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.<\/p>\n

In the first decade of this century, Canberra was the eager suitor, pushing Tokyo to do more, building the Australia\u2013Japan\u2013US trilateral. In the second decade, Japan stepped up under Shinzo Abe, showing uncharacteristic vigour and ambition. This decade is shaping as the moment Japan remakes itself as a military power.<\/p>\n

In launching the trilateral in that first decade, John Howard\u2019s government took the lead and Japan warmed slowly. When Foreign Minister Alexander Downer\u00a0first broached<\/a>\u00a0the trilateral with his Japanese counterpart, he was told Australia was too insignificant as a security player for Tokyo to bother. Equally, Canberra was eager to go further than Tokyo in the ambit of the\u00a0joint declaration on security cooperation<\/a>\u00a0that Howard and Abe signed in 2007. Australia wanted a treaty, while Japan would go only as far as a declaration.<\/p>\n

In his second coming as prime minister in that second decade, Abe changed much in ways that matter greatly for Australia<\/a>. The \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 may have been a US naval theory, but Abe\u2019s adoption made it a diplomatic and military construct with heft; Australia joined Japan as the first adopter. Abe was equally important in growing the trilateral, the second coming of the Quad<\/a>, and saving the\u00a0Trans-Pacific Partnership<\/a>\u00a0after US President Donald Trump pulled out\u2014a TPP without the US could only exist with Japan at its heart.<\/p>\n

The quasi-alliance has its fullest expression within the trilateral. The three defence ministers had their 10th meeting last week during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Their \u2018vision statement\u2019<\/a> has the now essential language about opposing \u2018coercion and destabilising behaviour\u2019 and standing against \u2018unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force\u2019, underscoring \u2018the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait\u2019.<\/p>\n

To Australian eyes, the trilateral statement now has the same tone and style of an AUSMIN communiqu\u00e9, with the effort to list \u2018concrete\u2019 outcomes such as exercises for interoperability and readiness; coordinated responses to regional disasters and crises; deepened cooperation on maritime capacity building; and a framework for research, development, test and evaluation to advance trilateral cooperation on advanced technologies and strategic capabilities.<\/p>\n

When Abe departed the leadership in 2020, Australia confronted the question of how much the quasi-alliance was based on his personality and how much on permanent shifts in Japan\u2019s policy personality. Abe pushed for a\u00a0stronger, more autonomous<\/a>\u00a0Japan rather than a\u00a0comfortable<\/a>\u00a0Japan declining gently into middle-power ease.<\/p>\n

The answer offered by Indo-Pacific expert Michael Green in his new book, Line of advantage: Japan\u2019s grand strategy in the era of Abe Shinzo<\/em><\/a>, is that the trajectory is set\u2014the Abe era will last much longer than the Abe tenure.<\/p>\n

Green argues that Japan has done more than any other country to devise a strategy to manage China\u2019s rising economic and military power, to \u2018compete but not to the death\u2019. Green\u2019s prediction<\/a>:<\/p>\n

From now on for 10, 20, 30 years, people will be referring to Abe\u2019s doctrine and Abe\u2019s approach. There will be variations. There will be changes. There could be big changes if we have war in Asia or if the US retreats from Asia, but I don\u2019t anticipate those. In terms of intent and trajectory, I think Japan will be very reliable and will be a thought leader and will be respected in Asia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The shape of the Abe era came into sharper focus on 8 June when Japan\u2019s cabinet approved a plan for a massive increase in defence spending from 1% to 2% of GDP<\/a>. The 2% pledge is buried in footnote comparisons to NATO spending, so the transformation of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida from dove to samurai<\/a> is still work in progress.<\/p>\n

In his speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Kishida promised: \u2018I am determined to fundamentally reinforce Japan\u2019s defence capabilities within the next five years and secure a substantial increase of Japan\u2019s defence budget needed to effect such reinforcement.\u2019<\/p>\n

In tandem with reinforcing its alliance with the US, Kishida said, Japan would strengthen \u2018security cooperation with other like-minded countries\u2019. A new era, he said, needed a new \u2018realism\u2019.<\/p>\n

Kishida noted that Germany had pledged to lift its defence spending to 2% of GDP, adding, \u2018I myself have a strong sense of urgency that Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.\u2019<\/p>\n

A Japan pushing fast to double its military spending will change much. After Kishida\u2019s speech, the director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, John Chipman, pointed out that if Japan and Germany reached the NATO standard of 2% of GDP for defence, that\u2019d make Japan the third-biggest defence spender in the world, behind only the US and China, while Germany would lift to number four.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has already had his first meeting with Kishida, at the Quad summit<\/a> on 24 May. They are set to meet again at the NATO summit in Madrid in a fortnight\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Just as NATO is always about alliance politics, these days Australia and Japan have their own alliance dialogue within the trilateral with the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia is removing the qualifications from its quasi-alliance with Japan. The visit to Japan by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles is another step in the fading of the qualifiers: \u2018quasi-alliance\u2019, \u2018small \u201ca\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":73220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,135,821,358,31],"class_list":["post-73218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-japan","tag-security-cooperation","tag-shangri-la-dialogue","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia and Japan as allies | 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\/australia-and-japan-as-allies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australia and Japan as allies | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australia is removing the qualifications from its quasi-alliance with Japan. 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