In December 2022, Japan crossed a new course by deciding to break openly with its strictly defensive principles: as part of its new “security strategy”, it is about to double its military budget and buys missiles Americans that can be used as a preventive manner. Over the years, Japan has become, despite its peaceful constitution, military power. Long set back, it now appears to be a full -fledged partner in the Western camp. The limits of its diplomatic room for maneuver are nonetheless apparent.
Under NATO pressure to increase his support for Ukraine, the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, had to recall that Japan is held by the “three principles” dating from 1967: not to export arms to arms to The countries of the Communist Bloc, countries under international embargo or those involved in conflicts. Deputy, these principles remain very restrictive.
m. Kishida is the only leader of the Western camp not to have gone to kyiv to testify to his solidarity to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Japan, located in a region where, from India to Southeast Asia, the actors prefer to refrain from identifying with a camp at the risk of being trained in a confrontation between blocks, remains cautious. “Going to Kiev would only underline the position of Japan on the eve of the G7” (which he must welcome in May in Hiroshima), believes a government source Cited in the daily Asahi Shimbun February 22.
Symptom of low profile
The absence, “due to parliamentary debates”, of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yoshimasa Hayashi, during a meeting between his G20 counterparts in New Delhi on March 2, was noticed and could be a symptom of the low profile adopted by Japan.
On the geostrategic level, on the other hand, Tokyo actively participates in the redeployment of the forces of the United States and their allies along the garland of the great archipelagos which extend in an arc of circle against China, from Hokkaido to Philippines via Taiwan.
After having given access to the American forces of four new military bases in the Philippines – which are added to the five which are already opened to them – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr launched, during his visit to Tokyo, in February , the idea of a tripartite security agreement between his country, the United States and Japan, which would make trilateral military cooperation between these last two countries and South Korea.
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