Waking Up To Geopolitics: A New Trajectory To Japan-Europe Relations

WAKING UP TO GEOPOLITICS
A NEW TRAJECTORY TO JAPAN-EUROPE RELATIONS

Sarah Raine
Andrew Small
MAY 2015
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WAKING UP TO GEOPOLITICS
A New Trajectory to Japan-Europe Relations
May 2015
Sarah Raine1 and Andrew Small2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Past Efforts, Present Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Overlooked and Undervalued: The Relationship That Is . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Relationship That Could Be, and How to Make it Happen . . . . . . . . 21
Sarah Raine is a non-resident transatlantic fellow with the Asia Program of The German Marshall Fund of the United
States (GMF) and a consulting senior fellow with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Andrew Small is a transatlantic fellow with GMFs Asia Program.
Introduction
he subject of Japan-Europe relations can sometimes fall into the category of worthybut-dull. One caricature of the two sides exchanges in recent years might run as
follows: Both sides would remark on their shared values, their history of cooperation,
their collective economic heft, and some common societal challenges, before going on to
discuss a few consequential financial matters, and some relatively peripheral areas of security
cooperation. Everyone would note the untapped potential of the partnership, and suggest
a few functional, technical, or geographical areas of cooperation in which this potential
might be realized. Then, when leaders from the two sides returned to thinking about their
top strategic priorities, other major partners and rivals would, once more, loom far
larger. The Japanese side would quietly regret that the Europeans dont get Asia and seem
increasingly blinded and compromised by Chinas allure. The Europeans would quietly regret
the revolving door of Japanese prime ministers and the fact that Japanese protectionism
on trade matters and constitutional limitations on its security role inhibited major areas of
cooperation. Even some of the obvious commonalities between the two sides have been liable
to provide reminders of things both sides would rather forget: aging populations, low growth
levels, and a hold on global power that seems to be fading. While both Europe and Japan
paid lip-service to the importance of soft power, it has been states wielding hard power that
have consumed their attention. Progress on Japan-Europe relations has been steady, and the
spirit good, but the pace has been slow and the political momentum behind them modest at
best. Many reports on the subject of upgrading ties between Japan and Europe have hence
naturally tended to approach the subject cautiously, advocating incremental advances down
paths of least resistance.
While both Europe and

Japan paid lip-service
to the importance
of soft power, it has
been states wielding
hard power that
have consumed their
attention.
This report starts from a different set of premises. It argues that the coming years provide a
window of opportunity for Europe and Japan to put their relationship on a new trajectory.
While the inhibiting factors for both sides have not vanished, they have certainly receded.
After a decade of political transition, Japan finally has a prime minister with the capacity
to hold power for a sustained number of years, the first office-holder to do so since
Junichiro Koizumi.1 On security and economic matters, some of the old shackles are off.
The constitutional reinterpretation of July 2014, allowing Japan to exercise collective selfdefense, is important in a technical sense in that it widens the options available to the Japanese
Self Defense Forces (JSDF), but it also reflects a broader process through which Japan is
expanding its role in international affairs, as embodied by Abes diplomatic activism that
saw him visit one-quarter of the worlds countries in his first 20 months in office.2 It is also
a government that appears willing to countenance important strategic economic choices
where protectionist proclivities once made Japanese participation in major trade deals nearimpossible, the political imperative to cement Japans strategic position now looks able to
trump them.
Prime Minister Abe looks secure in office until at least 2018 and is the first prime minister since Koizumi (2001-06) to stay in office
longer than 16 months.
Ankit Panda,Shinzo Abe Has Visited a Quarter of the Worlds Countries in 20 Months: Why?, The Diplomat, September 11, 2014.
Waking Up to Geopolitics
As Japan takes
the next steps
in developing an
enlarged security role
beyond its immediate
region, it will largely be
with European rather
than U.S. forces that it
will work most closely
on international peace
operations.
The strategic context for these developments is provided partly by concerns over the rise
of an increasingly assertive China. While the military dimensions of Beijings stance in the
East China Sea loom large, driving Japan to further deepen its security relationship with
the United States, this is not just a test of strength but a contest for legitimacy. With Japan
seeking to strengthen its position through the support of international laws and norms, as
well as reinforced military assurances from its chief ally, the Europeans have become a natural
port of call. Meanwhile, Europe too has been dealing with a geopolitical reality check, with
Russias intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea violating principles that had until
recently been thought unassailable. While the East Asian and European strategic contexts
are very different, both sides face a renewed imperative to underpin some very basic rules of
international order and to seek support from outside their respective regions in so doing.
There is, furthermore, now a collective recognition that Europes relationships in Asia have
to move beyond Beijing. This has already become true with regard to trade, where free-trade
agreements are being negotiated with virtually every country in the region except China.
But political interests are belatedly broadening also, which can be readily mapped by the
number of high-level visits from senior European politicians to the region, previously near
monomaniacal in their focus on China. Japan, a long-standing partner, is one of the most
obvious places to concentrate many of these energies. And in the background, the most
important ally of both sides the United States is actively encouraging efforts for security
partners to deepen their relationships. This is not only for the sake of cooperation in their
respective regions but also to address broader security threats more effectively too not least
in the Middle East and North Africa, regions on whose energy supplies Japan and Europe
now depend far more than the United States. As Japan takes the next steps in developing an
enlarged security role beyond its immediate region, it will largely be with European rather
than U.S. forces that it will work most closely on international peace operations.
This report argues that much of the process of transformation for the Europe-Japan
relationship is already underway. The EU-Japan relationship has entered a new phase,
most obviously in the talks on a trade pact that would form part of the Big 3 agreements
alongside the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP). France and the U.K. have forged forward in their bilateral ties, embarking
on U.S.-style 2+2 talks involving their respective defense and foreign ministers, and
signing agreements on joint development and production of defense equipment the first
agreements Japan has signed with any countries other than the United States. Meanwhile,
the once-marginalized G7 has again quietly become a forum for like-minded countries to
compare notes on shared challenges, for example, forging consensus on Ukraine, and issuing
its strongest statements to date on the East China and South China Seas.3 NATO and Japan
have put the framework in place to deepen their cooperation with their agreement on the
security of classified information in 2010 and the Joint Political Declaration of 2013.
Across a range of areas, the basis for a relationship that operates at the center of both sides
principal strategic interests is in place. But, as things stand, the whole still adds up to less than
3
G7 Leaders Communiqu, June 2014, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-637_en.htm.
the sum of its parts. Policymakers in Europe and Japan alike often lack awareness of the full
array of developments, whilst the institutionally diffuse nature of this progress can make it
difficult for these protagonists to appreciate the bigger picture. The priority is not only to do
more but also to find greater synergy between the initiatives that already exist. The EuropeJapan relationship remains overlooked and undervalued but ready to take off.
Past Efforts, Present Opportunities
T
That Japan and
Europe share common
interests and core
values as partners
in the protection and
promotion of the
liberal international
order has been long
established and
understood.
hat Japan and Europe share common interests and core values as partners in the
protection and promotion of the liberal international order has been long established
and understood. Both trading powerhouses, together still accounting for some 30
percent of the worlds GDP, the overlap between their respective economic interests is
inescapable. So too is the logic for their repeated attempts to develop a more comprehensive
partnership reflective of the broader range of shared values and interests that have provided
much of the platform for their respective successes.
Inter-linkages between European and Japanese economic and security interests have
been repeatedly highlighted down the years. For example, at the G7 summit of 1983, the
administration of YasuhiroNakasone pushed hard for a statement that acknowledged the
conflation of the Soviet threat in Europe and East Asia.4 As the Cold War ended and the
USSR collapsed, the 1991 Hague Declaration between the European Community and Japan
affirmed the intention of both sides to strengthen their cooperation in areas beyond trade
and the economy, in an effort to imbue burgeoning relations at European and member
state level with more of an overarching sense of purpose. A decade later, a Joint Action Plan
between the EU and Japan declared the signatories intention to shape a common future, and
included chapters ranging from promoting peace and security to coping with global and
societal challenges.5 But while the momentum behind this shopping list of grand ambitions
soon dissipated in benign neglect, persistent prompts regarding the logic of such efforts at
partnership continued. For example, in the mid-2000s, Japan was again reminded of the
importance of expanding its diplomatic horizons beyond the center-piece of its security
alliance with the United States, as the EU debated the future of its arms embargo on China.
One result of this concern was the launch of an EU-Japan strategic dialogue on East Asia.6
More recently, in 2006, the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity initiative of then Japanese Foreign
Minister Taro Aso highlighted the importance of cooperation with NATO and the EU as
partners in the promotion of peace and prosperity, aiming to connect Asian and Western
democracies.7
The Japanese delegation was concerned about avoiding a regional disarmament agreement between the United States and the
USSR on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) in Europe that could have proved disadvantageous to Japans security interests in
Asia, worried as they were that any withdrawal of missiles from Europe would simply result in their relocation to the Russian Far East.
The subsequent statement therefore proclaimed, the security of our [Japan and NATO] countries is indivisible. For more on this, see
Michito Tsuruoka, JapanEurope Security Cooperation: How to Use NATO and the EU, The National Institute for Defense Studies,
Japan, 2010, http://www.nids.go.jp/english/publication/kiyo/pdf/2011/bulletin_e2011_3.pdf.
Shaping Our Common Future, European Union-Japan Summit, Brussels, 2001. http://eeas.europa.eu/japan/docs/actionplan2001_en.pdf
Concerns continue to this day in Tokyo over the EUs management of its arms embargo on China, prompted by increasing European
exports of dual-use technology. For more details on the facts of these exports, see Western Arms Exports to China, Oliver Brauner,
Mark Bromley, and Mathieu Duchatel, SIPRI Policy Paper 43, January 2015.
Taro Aso, Arc of Freedom and Prosperity: Japans Expanding Diplomatic Horizons, Speech at the Japan Institute of International
Affairs, Tokyo, November 30, 2006. For more background on this and past framing of the universal values highlighted in Japans
democracy promotion diplomacy, see Daniel Kliman and Daniel Twining, Japans Democracy Diplomacy, GMF Asia Paper series, July
11, 2014, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/japans-democracy-diplomacy.
Partners of Choice, Just Not First Choice

Until recently, though, it has proved surprisingly difficult to convert much of this rhetoric of
cooperation and its supportive logic of natural strategic partnership into clear results. The
2001 Action Plan for Japan-EU Cooperation is but Exhibit A. Instead, relations have been
broadly characterized by flurries of activities around summits, with high-level attention
quickly falling away once the cameras have disappeared only to be followed by a rapid
return to (lower-level) business as usual. The Japan-Europe partnership duly bumbles along,
characterized back in 2006 by then European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, as a
mature relationship but one with untapped potential.8
Yet, as this report argues, dynamics are now shifting in the Transatlantic and Pacific strategic
theatres in general, as well as in both Europe and Japan in particular, in ways that could and
should offer an important window of opportunity to bolster this record of solid, but still
somewhat unexceptional cooperation to date.
This report, then, examines these shifting dynamics, highlighting the opportunities that
currently exist to forge a more influential and comprehensive partnership before proceeding to
look at the boosted cooperation that is already underway between Japan, the European Union,
and its constituent member states. While this developing cooperation is often not particularly
eye-catching in terms of media headlines, it is significant, substantive, and strategic. The
challenge ahead is more one of scale and impact. The report, therefore, concludes by
considering the potential mechanisms available for catalyzing this increased momentum into
concrete actions, whilst also offering some reasons for caution as to why the potential results
might yet disappoint.
Until recently,
though, it has proved
surprisingly difficult to
convert much of this
rhetoric of cooperation
and its supportive logic
of natural strategic
partnership into clear
results.
A New Momentum to Japan-Europe Relations

Japan is Back and so is China
The loss of $2 trillion off the Japanese stock market in 1990 alone brought to a dramatic
end a period of unparalleled Japanese prosperity. The country subsequently entered its lost
decade(s) the after-effects from which Japan is only now beginning to recover. Whilst
it remained, by all standards, exceptionally wealthy and sophisticated, the trajectory and
narrative at the turn of the century was of a nation in decline. When triple tragedy struck
in March 2011 in the form of an earthquake, tsunami, and then nuclear disaster, it seemed
symbolic of a country all out of luck. Political instability paralleled tectonic instabilities. By
2012, Japans international partners had been faced with six prime ministers in as many years.
The return of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a landslide election in 2012 shifted both
perceptions and realities. While considerable economic and societal challenges undoubtedly
remain, the Japanese stock market has more than doubled in value since Abes election
while the (deliberate) weakening of the yen has reinvigorated exports. The labor market
Speech by Jos Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, EU-Japan: A Mature Relationship with Untapped Potential, Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, April 21, 2006.
has also tightened, with unemployment at around 3.5 percent.9 Japan is now at the center of
negotiations for two major free trade deals with its Pacific and European partners.
From a nation in
decline, the image
being cultivated
now is one of a
revived economic
and technical
powerhouse... set for
a more developed
and substantive role
in support of the
international security
order.
The Abe administration has strengthened its defense relationships with key partners in the
United States, Europe, and Australasia, as well as with institutions such as NATO, as part of
a conscious effort to develop a more proactive role in international security affairs. Whilst
this reflects a broader shift in thinking that can be dated back, perhaps to Prime Minister
Koizumis increase of Japans security contributions in the Indian Ocean in the wake of the
terrorist attacks of 9/11, or indeed to Prime Minister Abes outreach to NATO during his
first administration, there has been a clear step change in deliverables in recent years.10 For
example, the 2 percent increase to Japans 2013 defense budget reversed a trend of 11 years
of continuous cuts, while plans were also announced for the expenditure of 24.7 trillion on
military hardware between 2014 and 2019, to include amphibious vehicles, drones, fighter jets,
and submarines.11 In January 2015, Abes cabinet approved a record defense budget of 4.98
trillion (US$ 42 billion), ensuring the countrys sixth place on a global ranking of national
military budgets. Meanwhile, Japans national parliament, the Diet, is considering enacting
bills to enable perhaps the biggest shift of Japanese security policy in decades the cabinet
decision of July 2014 to enable the countrys self-defense forces to come to the aid of friendly
countries under attack. Representative of these shifts in ambition and intent is that fact
that after having opened, in 2011 off the coast of Djibouti, Japans first and only permanent
overseas military facility, in 2015 the government in Tokyo was preparing to provide further
reinforcements to Self Defense Forces stationed there, in the form of patrol aircraft, as well as
mobilizing light armored vehicles for future search and rescue attempts.12
After the issuance of the countrys first National Security Strategy in 2013, which included
the intention to use Japanese Overseas Development Aid (ODA) more strategically, Japans
ODA charter was updated in February 2015 to target Japans prosperity and security
objectives more explicitly, and across a broader geographical reach (all as part of a rebranded
Development Cooperation Charter). While Japans ranking on the OECD donor table has
slipped somewhat as a result of its prolonged economic downturn, it remains a leading player,
with influence increasingly diversified across geographies and sectors.
From a nation in decline, the image being cultivated now is one of a revived economic
and technical powerhouse, ready to deliver on (much-needed) structural reforms through
innovative economic solutions, whilst also set for a more developed and substantive role
in support of the international security order. If the earthquake of 2011 symbolized Japans
9
Figures for February 2015.
10
After U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is famously said to have advised Japan to pull its head out of the sand and
show up for the Afghanistan war, Japan sent a substantial part of its Maritime Self Defense Forces (MSDF), including an Aegis-class
destroyer, to the Indian Ocean to aid and refuel the allied forces. Gavin McCormack, Koizumis Japan in Bushs World: After 9/11,
The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gavan-McCormack/2111/article.pdf. It has since spent upwards of
$5 billion in Afghanistan since 2001, with a further $3 billion promised through to 2017.
11
See Tooling up, The Economist, September 1, 2014.
12
For further details see: Yusuke Fukui and Sachiko Miwa, Japan to reinforce SDF anti-piracy base in Djibouti for broader Middle East
responses, The Asahi Shimbun, January 19, 2015.
decade past, the hope is that Tokyos Olympics in 2020 will symbolize its decade coming. As
Abe announced to a U.S. think tank audience in 2013, Japan is back.13
Yet whilst some of these developing dynamics are the result of increased confidence, others,
most notably the rise in Japans defense spending, are fuelled by a growing sense of insecurity.
In particular, there is deep concern over Chinas military developments and longer term
intentions, as symbolized by the escalating Chinese military and diplomatic challenge to
Japans control of the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. For while Japan is back, so too
albeit over a longer time frame and perspective is China. And a strategic environment
in which Chinese PLA Navy vessels repeatedly encroach into Japanese territorial waters is
an environment in which Japan needs the support of friends and partners more than ever,
in particular ones recognized for their normative influences on international standards and
values. Indeed, the very fact of Japanese frustrations over the constrained substance and
delayed timing of the EUs public statement following Chinas November 2013 announcement
of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea was reflective of this heightened
appreciation of the important role that Japans non-U.S. friends and partners can play.14
Parallel to Tokyos concern about evolving security dynamics in Asia comes a nagging worry
about the longer-term sustainability of the United States projection of itself as a resident
power in the Pacific and the credibility of its accompanying security guarantees. Whilst U.S.
presidents and their secretaries of defense line up to reassure to the contrary, Japanese partners
continue to fret about the cumulative effects on their key ally and security guarantor of almost
15 years of war in the Middle East, five years of budget cuts (including the disruptive effects of
sequestration), and a military that has been downsized by some 40 percent since 1990.15
A strategic
environment in
which Chinese
PLA Navy vessels
repeatedly encroach
into Japanese
territorial waters is
an environment in
which Japan needs the
support of friends and
partners more than
ever.
It is this insecurity in particular that is injecting a crucial ingredient, previously lacking, into
Tokyos new perspectives on its diplomatic outreach, including with its European partners:
a sense of urgency. The ordering of priorities may not have changed the United States
remains front and center of Japans security alliance but Tokyos to do alongside list has
certainly expanded. The consequences can be seen from the symbolic the name-checking of
support for greater cooperation with the EU in Japans first National Security Strategy to the
substantive expanded anti-piracy cooperation in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia, including
three EU-Japan anti-piracy exercises between October 2014 and February 2015. Japans
National Security Strategy of 2013 highlighted the convergence of interests and ideals that
underlies these policies: Europe has the influence to formulate international public opinions,
the capacity to develop norms in major international frameworks.16
13
Speech by Shinzo Abe, Japan is Back, CSIS, Washington, DC, February 22, 2013.
14
China announced its ADIZ on November 23, 2013. The United States issued a statement noting its deep concern at this unilateral action the same day. The EU followed five days later, expressing its concern and calling on all sides to exercise restraint.
15
Michael E. OHanlon, When elephants fly: A good idea on defense spending from the U.S. Congress, Order from Chaos Blog,
Brookings Institution, March 20, 2015.
16
Cabinet Secretariat of Japan, National Security Strategy (Provisional Translation), December 17, 2013, http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/
siryou/131217anzenhoshou/nss-e.pdf
Europe Searches for Partners
Complementary step-changes can also be detected in a Europe in greater need now of

augmented global partnerships on finance, standards, and security, faced with the clear
shifts eastwards of both the geoeconomic and geopolitical centers of gravity in international
relations.
A more stable and

engaged counterpart
in Tokyo is providing
a crucial impetus
encouraging European
nations to move
beyond their initial
collective obsession
with the rise of China
as the focal point for
their own Asia pivot.
Well into their own lost decade of the euro crisis, European nations remain desperate to
identify new sources of growth, the overwhelming majority of which will have to come from
beyond the continents own shores.17 Free trade deals, including in Asia, are rightly identified
as crucial sources for economic growth and job creation, bringing with them as a welcome
by-product opportunities to establish a more values-based approach to standard setting in this
shifting geoeconomic climate. With an EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in force
from July 2011 having transformed the EUs previous trade deficit with Korea into a 3.6
billion trade surplus within three years, there remains considerable interest in the potential of
an EU-Japan FTA, which has been under negotiation since March 2013. Trading relations have
been traditionally characterized by large surpluses in Japans favor, even if this has become
more balanced in recent years.18 Indeed, the European Commission has estimated that an
EU-Japan FTA could boost Europes economy by 0.6 to 0.8 percent of its GDP, creating up to
400,000 jobs in the process.19 Furthermore, as Abe fires his own three arrows of economic
policies designed to boost Japans growth prospects through a combination of fiscal stimulus,
monetary easing, and structural reform, there has also been cautious interest, at least in some
quarters of the EU, in what has become known as Abenomics. Indeed, even while it remains
a little premature to declare a final verdict on the efficacy of these policies, the joint press
statement that followed the conclusion of the May 2014 EU-Japan summit (the 22nd such
summit) readily noted the achievements of Abenomics.20
Meanwhile, the perception of a more stable and engaged counterpart in Tokyo is providing
a crucial impetus encouraging European nations to move beyond their initial collective
obsession with the rise of China as the focal point for their own Asia pivot and toward a
more balanced view of the region.21 There is, for example, greater appreciation for the role and
influence of Japan in global standard setting a key partner in ensuring a harmonization
of standards upwards rather than downwards, whether with regard to trading standards and
17
Just as Japan remained strong through its lost decade in relative terms, so the consequences of European weakness should not
be overstated. The EU collectively remains the largest economy in the world, the biggest exporter and importer, the leading investor
and recipient of foreign investment, and the biggest aid donor.
18
It should be noted that these shifts to trade surpluses are at least partly the result of suppressed demand from Europe due to
the eurocrisis, and not simply, for example in the case of South Korea, the 35 percent increase in EU goods exported there. For more
details, see http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/south-korea/. Meanwhile trading figures between
Europe and Japan have become more balanced in recent years.
19
Christian Filippitsch and Mara de Lasala Lobera, Trade state of play of the negotiations for a EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement,
Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, March 12, 2015.
20
European Commission, The EU and Japan Acting Together for Global Peace and Prosperity, 22nd EU-Japan Summit Joint Press
Statement, Brussels, May 7, 2014.
21
Japanese interlocutors interviewed for this report repeatedly raised German Chancellor Angela Merkels sustained attention to the
cultivation of her Chinese counter-parts as but one example of this China-centric perspective on Asia.
regimes, or to the management of the global commons of air, sea, and space.22 Overlapping
interests are also being increasingly identified in regional agendas, where, for example, a
growing second wave of Japanese foreign direct investment into Southeast Asia has the
potential to significantly boost economies in a part of the world increasingly identified
by Europe and others as a political and economic fulcrum of the wider region.23 Indeed, a
recently published GMF paper charting Japans global re-emergence notes the pro-active role
being played by Asias oldest democracy within the region, and the balance that it seeks to find
between values-based diplomacy and a pragmatic and practical engagement with the diverse
governments there.24
In parallel to the EU-Japan FTA, a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) is therefore also
under negotiation, intended to reflect these broader opportunities for political cooperation
more than 20 years on from the initial attempts encapsulated in the Hague Declaration. The
easy talk is of partners sharing common values and principles such as democracy, the
rule of law and human rights as well as challenges including aging societies and concerns
such as climate change. The more difficult challenge is how to more effectively translate such
commonalities of understanding into common actions.
Japans solidarity in imposing economic sanctions in reaction to Russias annexation of Crimea
has also provided an important reminder to European nations of the importance and utility
of cultivating as broad as possible a consensus on international legal norms and standards.
If such acts are to be seen for the violations of international (as opposed to Western) legal
norms that they are, then some solidarity across the hemispheres beginning with unity at
G7 level is vital. And here, with its parallel imposition of sanctions on Russia, Japan has
taken clear stand taking the opportunity to remind its European partners of the common
threat they face when major powers seek to change the status quo by force or coercion, with
clear reference to its own parallel security concerns regarding Chinese ambitions in the East
China Sea. Moreover, this stance, made alongside its European and U.S. allies, has come at
some diplomatic cost given Abes past personal investments in cultivating close relations with
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Japan has also provided significant financial assistance to
Ukraine, suggesting it will prioritize anti-corruption efforts during its coming G7 Presidency.
In return, and perhaps more circumspectly, amidst all the talk in Europe of the return of
geopolitics, Tokyo hopes for a growing undercurrent of empathy for Japans perception of its
own security situation in its region. This should not be overstated; reservations clearly remain
within Europe (albeit to differing degrees and with differing intensity) regarding Japans
management of its historical record in northeast Asia as well as its present security dynamics
with China, but there is at least more understanding in Europe now of the fact that Asia is
22
Japans solidarity in
imposing economic
sanctions in reaction
to Russias annexation
of Crimea has
also provided an
important reminder to
European nations of
the importance and
utility of cultivating
as broad as possible
a consensus on
international legal
norms and standards.
Interview with Japanese academic, Tokyo, November 20, 2014.
23
For more on this, see Malcolm Cook, The Second Wave: Japanese FDI to Asia, ISEAS Perspective 33, May 29, 2014, http://www.
iseas.edu.sg/documents/publication/ISEAS_Perspective_2014_33_final.pdf.
24
Joshua Walker and Sharon Stirling-Woolsey, Japans Global Re-Emergence: How Japans Active Diplomacy Strengthens the Foundations of the U.S.-Japan Alliance. GMF Policy Brief, April 6, 2015, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/japans-global-re-emergence.
a part of the world in which geopolitics never really even gave the illusion of having gone
away.25
There is a clear
opportunity for the
U.S.-Europe and U.S.Japan alliances to
pursue new forms of
trilateral cooperation
spanning the Atlantic
and Pacific realms in
order to confront the
myriad challenges that
are not limited to one
region or the other.
European powers at the EU and member state level, stretched on defense budgets and
capabilities, are also paying close attention to the opportunities afforded by the Abe
administrations outreach on issues of defense and security. As the next section of this
report will explore in more detail, this results in part from direct experiences of improved
non-military cooperation in the likes of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The results
can be seen in growing interest in Japanese participation in European crisis management
missions under its Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), the development of greater
cooperation on defense technology, as well as boosted dialogues on soft-capacity building
(from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in Southeast Asia to counter terrorism in
Pakistan). As a consequence, it is becoming increasingly easy to highlight concrete instances
of collaborations between Japan and the EU in the field of international security, whether
this be the capacity building of police officers and judicial administrations in the Democratic
Republic of Congo or the enhancement of judicial cooperation and the capacity building of
national military forces in Mali.
Boosting Europe-Japan Relations as Part of a Broader Rise in Mini-Lateralism
This renewed sense of utility in broadening and deepening the existing Japan-Europe
partnership as well as the accompanying sense of a clear window of opportunity
underlying such momentum has been further nurtured by parallel developments in U.S.Japan relations. Here, the Defense Cooperation Guidelines updated in 2015 for the first
time since 1997 reflect the evolution of the alliance from a U.S. constitutional commitment
to defend Japan into a broader global security partnership.26 Moreover, following a U.S. shift
away from its traditional hub and spokes approach to the region, which tended to isolate
Asian allies from each other, the country is now working with Japan to make the U.S.-Japan
alliance the hub for institutionalized security cooperation with third countries like South
Korea, India, and Australia. Similarly, there is a clear opportunity for the U.S.-Europe and
U.S.-Japan alliances to pursue new forms of trilateral cooperation spanning the Atlantic and
Pacific realms in order to confront the myriad challenges that are not limited to one region or
the other.
Strategic Windows of Opportunity
As any politician, policymaker, or observer will note, the fact that there is strong logic
propelling partners to action does not mean that actual action will result. Yet what jumps
out from this broad survey of the strategic landscape of Europe-Japan relations is the
complementary confluence of current trends pointing the partners in the same direction and
toward similar goals. In other words, even when any high-minded declarations of norm setting
or like-mindedness are removed from the formula for partnership, the simple self-interested
25
This is in stark contrast to numerous academic articles by Western authors remarking on the return of geopolitics. See, for
example, Walter Russell Mead, The Return of Geopolitics, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014.
26
10
Ministry of Defense of Japan, The Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, April 27, 2015.
strategic imperatives urging closer, more substantive cooperation are becoming increasingly
difficult to deny. Indeed, as this report will go on to demonstrate, some of these imperatives
are already in evidence albeit under-appreciated and under-covered by a global media
more attracted to the coverage of dysfunctional or difficult relationships. Yet more could and
should be coming down the pipeline of partnership. With forces in Europe and Japan for
once seemingly aligned in recognition of their mutual interest in engagement, the window of
strategic opportunity is clearly open.
11
Overlooked and Undervalued:

The Relationship That Is
More than Meets the Eye
O
While the major Asian
and transatlantic trade
deals, TPP and TTIP,
continue to draw a
prodigious number
of column inches,
the comparably
sized Japan-EU FTA
negotiations attract
virtually no public
attention.
ne reason the Japan-Europe relationship has been traditionally undervalued is that

there is relatively little general appreciation of the existing areas of cooperation between
the two sides. While relations with the United States consume much of the oxygen
in the debate, and the rising powers command much of the excitement and anxiety, longstanding partnerships between the worlds other principal economic, military, political, and
technological powers have tended often to fall below the radar. This has some advantages
from trade negotiations to military cooperation, relations between Japan and Europe elicit
neither geopolitical nor populist angst. But it can also result in a mutual tendency to underplay
the strategic weight that should be attached to such partnerships.
The European Union and Japan are among the worlds largest and most sophisticated
economies. Yet while the major Asian and transatlantic trade deals, TPP and TTIP, continue
to draw a prodigious number of column inches, the comparably sized Japan-EU FTA
negotiations attract virtually no public attention.27 Even at the peak of the eurozone crisis, as
political debates rumbled about whether Chinese bond purchases might save the eurozone,
the fact that it was Japan that became the largest external purchaser of bonds issued by the
European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) tended to feature as a footnote rather than a
headline.28
This tendency is even more evident in security affairs. Japans consistent willingness to
join like-minded countries in addressing their primary security concerns has ranged from
the multi-billion dollar financial support it has provided to Afghanistan to its adoption, at
some political cost, of sanctions on Russia in solidarity with its Western partners. Yet this
cooperation is at times taken for granted, or treated simply as an extension of the U.S.-Japan
alliance.
Europes security role in Japans neighborhood is also too often discounted. While the EUs
past debates over lifting its arms embargo on China attracted attention and opprobrium, the
fact that European sales of advanced defense equipment to other Asian states have proceeded
apace, while the arms embargo on China remains in place, is poorly appreciated.29 And in
an environment where strategic economic policy plays an increasingly central role (with the
successful conclusion of TPP being described by U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter as
being as important to me as another aircraft carrier) the array of European FTAs in Asia
minus China draws little attention outside the trade world.30
27
The agreement would encompass 32 percent of global GDP and 36 percent of world trade. Presentation by Yorizumi Watanabe,
The Japan-EU EPA and its Potential Contribution to the 21st Century Trade Rules, Brookings Seminar on Mega Trade Agreements,
Washington, DC, December 16, 2013.
28
This is not to say that relations on currency issues through the euro crisis were without their problems, but Japan was helpfully
vocal in repeatedly publicly declaring these bonds an attractive investment, whilst its finance minister went on the record with his
intention to continue buying such bonds even after the downgrade to AA+ status by U.S. ratings agency Standard and Poor on January
16, 2012.
12
29
For more on Europes role here, see Robbin F Laird, America Pivots to Asia; Europe Arms It, The Diplomat, August 16, 2013.
30
TPP deal as important as new aircraft carrier: Pentagon chief, Bloomberg, April 7, 2015.
Much of this is understandable. European officials themselves would, for example, struggle
to outline a guiding strategic rationale for their pattern of arms sales in Asia, while Japanese
bond purchases during the eurozone crisis were guided in large part by economic logic rather
than by blind commitment to the European political project. But behavior does not always
have to be strategically motivated to have strategic effect. Indeed, as two of the worlds largest
economic blocks, with advanced technologies and militaries, mutual interactions across a long
list of different areas are likely to have a substantive impact on each others interests even if
there are stages where there is little mutual consideration given to this impact or what it might
be. Suggestions in NATOs 2010 Strategic Concept to negotiate the redeployment of Russian
missiles away from Europe were undertaken with little reference to the implications of the fact
that they would likely be redeployed nearer to Japan.31 At other times, it simply leaves areas of
coordination underexploited, such as ensuring that EU-Japan FTA negotiations reinforce and
complement TPP and TTIP, for instance, rather than operating on parallel tracks. Mapping
out the two sides cooperation as global actors therefore not only requires an overview of
their existing areas of active coordination, but also of the areas where the two sides strategic
behaviors could be more effectively aligned.
Diffusion
Like [Japan and

Europes] respective
relationships with the
United States, the
diffuse nature of these
interactions is partly
a source of strength.
But it also makes it a
challenge to join the
dots at a strategic
level.
Japan and Europe interact across an extensive array of institutions and mechanisms. Like
their respective relationships with the United States, the diffuse nature of these interactions is
partly a source of strength. But it also makes it a challenge to join the dots at a strategic level,
especially since the fact that the cooperation is not centered on a defined alliance structure but
spread out across institutions and ministries can leave it seeming relatively shallow.
The G7 has provided one platform at which Japans economic and political leaders meet
regularly with their principal European counterparts. Alongside the United States, the two
sides also occupy central positions at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the
Asian Development Bank. The European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and other European
central banks are in constant contact. The Europeans and the Japanese play leading roles in
an array of multilateral structures at the UN. And the EU and Japan are among the principal
blocs at the World Trade Organization (WTO), even filing their first joint case together
accompanied by the United States against China in 2012. But these interactions take
on a different significance now. For many years, U.S.-European-Japanese dominance in
most of the global financial, economic, and political institutions meant that the collective
deliberations between the three sides alone were the process of global rule and norm setting
across a host of areas. But as economic and political power has shifted, this no longer holds
true. As new powers have taken their place in these structures, and as consultations have
necessarily expanded out beyond this traditional trilateral base, the decision-makers are
no longer confined to this like-minded group. As a result, just as the most important trade
31
Active Engagement, Modern Defence, Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, November 2010. For more on Japanese concerns at the time, see Michito Tsuroka, Relocating Tactical Nuclear
Weapons? A View from Japan, The Tokyo Foundation, May 30, 2011, http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2011/tacticalnuclea-weapons.
13
negotiations have now moved outside the WTO and into bilateral and plurilateral talks, the
real momentum for Japan-Europe relations now comes through engagement with, and on the
part of, the European institutions and the major member states.
EU
Recent years have

arguably seen a
stronger impetus
behind Frances
bilateral cooperation
with Japan than with
any other European
country.
The institutional relationship between the EU and Japan has made significant progress on
several important fronts in the last few years. Under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)
government (2009-12) there was a deliberate push to diversify Tokyos diplomatic partnerships
beyond what was perceived as an unhealthy focus on the United States, bringing with it new
interest in the EU and its member states. After the Tokyo summit of April 2010 resulted in the
establishment of a joint High-Level Group to strengthen bilateral relations, in 2013, the two
sides formally embarked on FTA negotiations that even a few years previously would have
been largely unthinkable. Meanwhile, progressing in parallel, talks on a strategic partnership
agreement aspire to provide a political framework that transcends the commercial elements
of the FTA. Interactions at the EU level are also providing the platform for a number of new
dialogues including on cyber and space security that constitute some of most promising
emerging areas of cooperation between the two sides. Operational cooperation with the EU on
counter-piracy missions has also taken off under the auspices of the EU Atalanta operation.32
Changes to Japans ODA, now operating under a rebranded Development Cooperation
Charter, may make it an increasingly effective partner in terms not only of process where
Japans efforts to improve the coordination of actors through its All-Japan Approach mirrors
similar EU efforts under its comprehensive approach but also in terms of output, with
new guidelines allowing Japan, for example, to deliver assistance to military personnel in
non-combat situations.33
France
Recent years have arguably seen a stronger impetus behind Frances bilateral cooperation with
Japan than with any other European country, as symbolized by the fact that France was the
first European country with whom Japan held its first ministerial-level foreign affairs/defense
2+2 dialogue with a European nation, in January 2014.
As an earlier GMF report covering the state of Europe-Japan relations makes clear, the push
by the DPJ to do more with their European partners was already yielding results before the
election of President FranoisHollande.34 But it was with Hollandes election in May 2012
that this momentum really became mutual, as his government expended particular political
energy on deepening its Asian relationships beyond China, with Japan and Southeast Asia
32
For more on this in particular, and a look at the significant scope for cooperation in global peacekeeping efforts more generally,
see Richard Gowan, UN Peacekeeping: A Focus for Japanese Cooperation with the United States and Europe?, GMF Policy Brief, April
2015, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/un-peacekeeping-focus-japanese-cooperation-united-states-and-europe.
33
The significance of developments here actual and promised are explored in greater detail in Akiko Fukushima, Japan-Europe
Cooperation for Peace and Stability: Pursuing Synergies on a Comprehensive Approach, GMF Policy Brief, April 2015, http://www.
gmfus.org/publications/japan-europe-cooperation-peace-and-stability.
34
Daniel Kliman and Daniel Twining, Japans Democracy Diplomacy, GMF Asia series, July 2014, p 31, http://www.gmfus.org/
publications/japans-democracy-diplomacy.
14
the major focal points for French attentions. Indeed, from May 2012 to November 2013, there
were 33 French government official visits to Asia, in comparison to just 13 in the previous
two years, all as part of a new emphasis on what French officials labeled their economic
diplomacy.35 A crucial part of this economic diplomacy inevitably involved a concentration
on the commercial advantages of boosted defense cooperation. Indeed, in 2012, 50 percent of
all French arms sales went to Asia, with France becoming one of the major defense partners
of countries like Malaysia. The 2013 French Defense and National Security White Paper
explicitly addressed the need for France to grow its security profile in the region, a task made
easier by the French presence in the Pacific through its administration of island territories
there, and in which theater joint exercises with Japan have since been conducted. Hollandes
state visit to Japan in June 2013, which included naming Japan as an exceptional partner,
provided important further momentum, setting out an ambitious agenda to boost mutual
cooperation, including on weapons cooperation and a dialogue on export control to cover
dual-use technologies a first not just for Japan but also for France.
Japan and France have

moved forward with
joint or coordinated
actions in different
areas of the world.
During Abes visit to France in May 2014, the two countries common expertise in nuclear
power was another area highlighted for further cooperation, with a commitment made
to work together on future reactor technology, including for example the Astrid project
(Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration), where Japans
Atomic Energy Agency would cooperate with Frances Atomic Energy and Alternative
Energies Commission.
In July 2014, only weeks after signing a deal with the U.K. on the joint development of missile
technology, a memorandum of understanding to enhance defense cooperation, including the
joint development of military equipment36 was finally signed by Japanese and French defense
ministers, with projects under its auspices including the development of unmanned systems
such as underwater vehicles.
Japan and France have moved forward with joint or coordinated actions in different areas of
the world. This has been most notable in French-speaking Africa, where France has sought
additional partners on matters ranging from finance to capacity building, and where Japan,
already the biggest Asian finance project sponsor on the continent, has looked to benefit from
Frances military and intelligence presence for the protection of its nationals and assets.37
Indeed, when foreign ministers from the two countries met in January 2015, cooperation on
the fight against terrorism was given top billing in the record of their discussions on bilateral
cooperation.38 And when Frances foreign and defense ministers travelled to Tokyo in March
for the 2015 2+2, they did so in part to discuss a plan of action for Africa, which included
consideration of joint initiatives to secure borders in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, alongside
greater cooperation on peacekeeping missions, sustainable development, and healthcare.
35
Francois Godement, Frances Pivot to Asia, ECFR Policy Brief, May 2014.
36
Japan, France Agree on Defense Equipment Cooperation, AFP via DefenseNews, July 29, 2014.
37
Japan called biggest Asian project finance sponsor in Africa, The Japan Times, March 30, 2015.
38
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Japan-France Foreign Ministers Meeting, January 19, 2015.
15
Improved state-sponsored cooperation has also helped promote increasing ties in the
commercial sector. This includes, for example, a successful $22 billion bid in 2013 by a FrancoJapanese consortium to build Turkeys second nuclear power plant, as well as the establishment
of a joint venture between Frances Areva and Japans Atox to focus on decommissioning and
dismantling Japanese nuclear power plants.39
Japan, like the United

States, has watched
with some concern
an apparent ongoing
retrenchment of British
foreign policy.
U.K.
The U.K. has traditionally been Japans closest partner in Europe. It is this backdrop that has
helped inform at least some of the impetus for recent progress in the bilateral relationship,
prompted by anxiety in London (and to some degree also in Tokyo) not to see its own bilateral
relations with Japan too far usurped by progress in Franco-Japanese relations. Japan, like the
United States, has watched with some concern an apparent ongoing retrenchment of British
foreign policy, particularly with regard to the EU, where Tokyo has counted on the U.K. as a
supporter and advocate.40 Meanwhile, as the U.K.s unilateral announcement of its decision
to become a founding member of the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank (AIIB) highlighted, it also frets at the U.K.s seeming temptations toward mercantilism
over securing a coordinated position with allies when it comes to dealing with China.41
Nevertheless, Japan also remains acutely aware of the U.K.s relative pre-disposition toward a
more global perspective, in particular with regard to European engagement in Asia. Indeed,
speaking the day after Prime Ministers Cameron and Abe agreed, in May 2014, to begin
negotiations on an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement to provide logistic, technical
and administrative support to each others forces, and to convene their first 2+2 bilateral, Vice
Parliamentary Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara called for the development of a transEurasian relationship with the U.K.. He noted that a relationship with the U.K. similar to
Japans ties to the United States was indispensable in the current security environment.42
Yet the momentum that has developed in this bilateral relationship is relatively recent. Indeed,
when David Cameron visited Tokyo in April 2012 after being forced to postpone his plans
in October 2011 he became the first British prime minister to travel to Japan on a bilateral
visit since Tony Blair in 2003. Set on reviving ties with an old ally, the fact that he was
accompanied by executives from six defense contractors made clear where the emphasis of
this revival would fall.43 The agreement on joint weapons development that resulted was the
first such agreement signed by Japan following its long-awaited decision to relax its Three
Principles of Arms Exports which previously inhibited Japanese arms exports and the joint
39
Japanese-French consortium sees Turkish nuclear reactor ready by 2023, Reuters, October 14, 2014; Nuclear bond between
France and Japan, World Nuclear News, May 6, 2014.
40
Michito Tsuruoka, Britain Outside Europe? The Japanese View, German Council on Foreign Relations, July 23, 2014.
41
Thomas Wright, A special argument: The U.S., U.K., and the AIIB, Order from Chaos Blog, Brookings Institution, March 13, 2015.
42
Speech by Minoru Kihara, Japan and U.K. as strategic partners toward further cooperation in the defence field, IISS, London,
May 2, 2014.
43
Interview by Cameron with the Japanese Daily Yoimuri. Referenced in http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/apr/10/davidcameron-japan-defense-contracts.
16
development of military equipment and indeed the first agreement by Japan to develop
weapons with a country other than the United States.
In July 2013, a month after Camerons meeting on the margins of the G8 summit with Abe,
two further key agreements were signed: a Defense Equipment Cooperation Framework to
facilitate joint development of military equipment and an Information Security Agreement
in support of boosted intelligence cooperation. As momentum continued through Abes
2014 visit to London and the joint statement this produced, the results of these and other
bilateral agreements were increasingly in evidence. Japan and the U.K. are now partners in
joint developments ranging from enhanced assessment measures for protective chemical and
biological warfare suits to missile technology for air-to-air Meteor missiles. Exercises and
exchanges between the armed forces of the two countries are increasingly regular.44 And in
January 2015, on the occasion of the first U.K.-Japan 2+2 meeting, several areas for closer
cooperation were highlighted, including disarmament, non-proliferation, arms control,
disaster relief, anti-piracy initiatives, cyber security, humanitarian aid, and peacekeeping.
Germany
While France and the U.K. have made significant moves forward in their bilateral relationships
with Japan in the last few years, progress in German-Japan relations has lagged somewhat
behind, notably with regard to high-level political investment in the cultivation of bilateral
relations. In part for reasons of traditional German reticence to highlight its strength and
global role as an arms exporter, and because Japans priority in security matters in Europe
focused on the continents two leading military powers, areas of security cooperation that are
now perceived as the benchmark for Japans relationships with European powers such as
the defense equipment cooperation agreements and 2+2 talks have not been matched by
similar initiatives from Berlin. Indeed, despite discussions about establishing 2+2 talks starting
in 2013, there has been arguably more progress with Japan-Italy relations in the last year, for
example, than Japans relations with Europes leading economic power.
While France and

the U.K. have made
significant moves
forward in their
bilateral relationships
with Japan in the last
few years, progress
in German-Japan
relations has lagged
somewhat behind.
Ties between the two sides are perhaps still encapsulated by the statement from former Prime
Minister KiichiMiyazawa that German-Japanese relations are generally good and there
are no particular bilateral problems. This results in a certain indifference, which may be
considered a problem.45 This dynamic has acquired greater salience on the Japanese side as
the top-level attention Germanys relationship with Beijing commands, and the comparative
dynamism behind this bilateral relationship, has increased so visibly over the past decade.
Indeed, German Chancellor Angela Merkels visit to Tokyo in March 2015 made as part of
her round of visits to all G7 nations during Germanys chairmanship and thus not even a truly
bilateral visit was her first since 2008. In contrast, her visit to China in July 2014 was her
seventh such trip as chancellor.
44
For example, in November 2014, HMS Atherstone spent two weeks working in close company with the ships and staff of
the Japanese 51st Mine Division in waters off the Gulf, http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2014/
november/26/141126-atherstone-japan.
45
Kiichi Miyazawa, Japanese-German Center Berlin 20th Anniversary Festschrift, 2005.
17
Whilst opinion polls regularly record Japans high standing in German public opinion, there
are sections of the German elite where Japan has, as one German academic noted to the
authors of this paper, lost the public relations battle with China.46
NATO is, in many ways,

the natural bridge as
Japan seeks both to
reinforce its bilateral
U.S. alliance and
expand its security
role beyond this
partnership.
Nevertheless, perhaps helped by the fact that the relationship with China remains mainly
confined to the economic area, and at least a rhetorical determination in Berlin to consider
Asia beyond China, there have been some positive developments in German-Japanese
relations. Whilst Merkel may not have been a regular visitor to Tokyo, Volker Kauder, her
trusted consort and chairman of her political party grouping in the Bundestag, has made
five visits in as many years, as has the partys foreign policy spokesman, Philipp Missfelder.
Top-level contacts have been further boosted by the 2011 exchange of visits by the Japanese
crown prince to Germany and the German federal president to Japan, the 2014 visit of Abe
to Berlin and the two partners back-to-back chairmanship of the G7. Meanwhile, Japanese
Foreign Minister FumioKishida visited Germany in February 2014, meeting his counterpart
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the sidelines of the Munich Security
Conference. He returned again for bilateral talks in September 2014, whilst Steinmeier visited
Tokyo in April 2014. There is also ongoing political coordination with Japan in other forums,
such as the G4 grouping that includes Brazil and India and that has the objective of making all
four nations permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
Despite the perceived lack of complementarity between the two economies, Japan is still
Germanys second-largest trading partner in Asia, and there are many similarities between the
two technologically and industrially advanced civilian powers.47 But it will be a challenge to
move the broader Japan-Europe relationship to the next level without a serious investment of
energy from both sides in pulling this bilateral relationship forward too.
NATO
NATO is, in many ways, the natural bridge as Japan seeks both to reinforce its bilateral U.S.
alliance and expand its security role beyond this partnership. Yet while Japan is NATOs
longest-standing global partner with the first NATO-Japan security conference taking place
in 1990 progress has been fitful.
The international response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington
qualitatively transformed Japanese engagement with NATO. As the United States and its
European allies moved to topple the Taliban regime that had harbored al Qaeda, Tokyo made
an unprecedented decision to refuel naval vessels involved in the operation many belonging
to NATO members.48 After the fall of the Taliban, Japan contributed to the stabilization and
46
Interview with German academic, Berlin, May 5, 2015.
47
There are, of course, also some complementarities, not least the obvious fact that many German products depend upon Japanese
high-technology components. Nevertheless, in terms of German imports, Japan ranked 17th among Germanys foreign trading
partners in 2013, and 15th as a buyer of German exports. For more, see Volker Stanzel, Seventy Years After World War II: German
and Japanese Successes and Responsibilities, GMF Policy Brief, April 2015, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/seventy-years-afterworld-war-ii-german-and-japanese-successes-and-responsibilities.
48
Daniel Kliman, Japans Security Strategy in the Post-9/11 World (Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2006);
Masashi Nishihara, Can Japan Be a Global Partner for NATO? Riga Papers, 2006; The MSDF Indian Ocean deployment blue water
militarization in a normal country, APSNet Policy Forum, March 30, 2006.
18
reconstruction of Afghanistan, a mission that became a priority for NATO when the alliance
assumed leadership of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Japans support for
NATO was indirect but consequential: it offered development assistance to Afghanistan at a
level second only to that of the United States.49
Coordination in Afghanistan catalyzed a broader relationship between Japan and NATO.
NATO designated Japan first as a Contact Country, and subsequently a partner across
the globe a term applied to a smaller subset of external partners.50 A sense of common
purpose was further advanced during Abes first term as prime minister, when, in 2007,
he became the first Japanese prime minister to visit NATOs Headquarters in Brussels.
Yet cooperation remained largely restricted by Japans interpretation of its constitutional
limitations, meaning that its value to both sides has for some time been as much about
dialogue and coordination on shared security concerns as active partnership. Nevertheless, as
NATO looked around for contributions in kind to its war in Afghanistan, Japanese financing
and its role in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) made it one of the
major non-NATO partners, providing a concrete basis on which cooperation could proceed.
Japans support for

NATO was indirect
but consequential: it
offered development
assistance to
Afghanistan at a level
second only to that of
the United States.
After the DPJ administration concluded an information-sharing agreement with NATO,51

Abes current administration further elevated ties with NATO by signing a Joint Political
Declaration (2013), and an Individual Partnership Cooperation Program, which lists medium
and long-term priority objectives for bilateral cooperation (2014). Japan has also sent its first
SDF officer, Lt. Colonel Chizu Kurita, on secondment to NATO HQ.52 Finally, there have been
a series of high level visits in the past couple of years, including by NATO Secretary General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Tokyo in 2013 and Abes return visit to NATO in 2014.
Developing Trends
Across the array of developments involving the EU, NATO, and major member states, there
are a few common strands.
A growing number of visits by senior figures in Europe and Japan, reflecting a general
trend toward increased political engagement.
A move beyond the usual investment and economic cooperation into concrete areas of
collaboration on the defense and security side, which is fast becoming the most important
new area of cooperation.
An effort to put the relationship into a clearer strategic framework, both bilaterally and
under the auspices of the Strategic Partnership Agreement and FTA.
49
Michito Tsuruoka, NATO and Japan: A View from Tokyo, The RUSI Journal 156, Issue 6, 2011.
50
NATO, NATO cooperation with Japan, April 22, 2013.
51
Alex Martin, First overseas military base since WWII to open in Djibouti, The Japan Times, July 2, 2011; Michito Tsuruoka, The
U.K., Europe, and Japan: Forging a New Security Partnership, The RUSI Journal 158, no. 6 (December 2013): 62; Tsuruoka, NATO
and Japan: A View from Tokyo; Japan Ministry of Defense, National Defense Program Guidelines, December 17, 2010.
52
http://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/official_texts_99562.htm.
19
New forms of institutionalization, including the 2+2, that promise to expand political
investment in the relationship beyond the usual economic policymakers, and regularize the
exchanges between the two sides.
A growing appreciation of the globalized and intertwined nature of the security and
economic challenges and opportunities facing the two sides, whether this be great power
assertiveness, terrorism, proliferation, challenges to the global commons, the fate of the
major international financial and development institutions, or the mutually reinforcing
objectives of major trade negotiations.
Furthermore, there are emerging areas of cooperation between Europe and Japan where
their affinities are perhaps greater with each other than with their U.S. ally. For example,
as the United States experiences the liberation of its shale-gas revolution, both Europe
and Japan remain heavily dependent on imports from less stable parts of the world and
across sea lines that need to be kept open dependably. Japanese and European ambitions
on climate change have also traditionally been more closely matched. Meanwhile, the two
sides comparatively closer views on labor rights, health, and the role of the private sector in a
mixed economy has been a major factor behind the relative lack of public sensitivity around
EU-Japan FTA negotiations. Even with regard to deployments to date on security operations
from peacekeeping, to counter-piracy, to capacity building effort in fragile states, it is often
alongside European rather the U.S. forces that the JSDF find themselves deployed.
20
The Relationship That Could Be,

and How to Make it Happen
here is already, then, mounting evidence of this growing mutual interest in boosting
practical bilateral cooperation, both at EU and member state level, albeit with inevitable
disparities in political prioritization, agendas, and follow through. And while EuropeJapan cooperation may well be the weakest leg of the U.S.-EU-Japan Trilateral relationship,
both the U.S.-Japan alliance and the transatlantic alliance clearly set very high benchmarks.
Furthermore, weaknesses in the dissemination of information of what is actually going on in
the EU-Japan relationship often lead to an unfair under-estimation of the activity and import
of this partnership, including even by the actors themselves.
Growing the Partnership Further: What are the Parameters?
For the partnership to grow further, both sides will need to adopt an approach that is realistic
and respectful of each others limitations as well as capabilities.
Both sides will need

to adopt an approach
that is realistic and
respectful of each
others limitations as
well as capabilities.
For Japan, the EU will likely continue to disappoint in certain aspects of its security
engagements in Asia. Even a traditional maritime power like the U.K., with its defense
agreements in the region and at least a rhetoric of global perspective, is unlikely to have much
capacity for developing a more visible maritime presence in Asias seas. Budgetary pressures
at home and encroaching crises to Europes south and east will continue to take priority. Yet,
for all their myriad internal challenges, the EU and its member states will remain significant
normative, diplomatic, and trading powers for the foreseeable future. Their security role in
many regions of the world where vital Japanese interests are at stake will be considerable.
And the strategic economic role they play in Asia will also continue to influence the security
environment, from sanctions to FTAs.
Likewise for the EU, Japan may be a partner on matters of democracy, rule of law, and human
rights as witnessed, for example by regular bilateral consultations before the annual
session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. But (like the United States) it
will continue to frustrate with regard to the EUs policy of universal abolition of the death
penalty.53 Yet, despite these differences, Tokyo still remains a natural normative partner
both on the global stage, with regard for example to the challenges of climate change, but
also regionally, in a part of the world where the rules of the road, or more literally often the
sea, are still being determined.54As Abe argued in his 2014 speech at the IISS Shangri La
Dialogue, what the world eagerly awaits is for our seas and our skies to be places governed
by rules, laws, and established dispute-resolution procedures. The least desirable state of
affairs is having to fear that coercion and threats will take the place of rules and laws and that
unexpected situations will arise at arbitrary times and places.55
53
Japan and the United States are the only two members of the G7 to still use the death penalty. For more on EU concerns on the
circumstances surrounding Japans implementation of the death penalty, see http://www.euinjapan.jp/en/world/human/penalty/.
54
See, for example, the debate sparked by China over sovereign rights within Exclusive Economic Zones, with particular regard to U.S.
surveillance activities in the South China Sea.
55
Shinzo Abe, Opening Remarks and Keynote Address, Shangri-La Dialogue, 2014, https://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri%20
la%20dialogue/archive/2014-c20c/opening-remarks-and-keynote-address-b0b2/keynote-address-shinzo-abe-a787.
21
Meanwhile, as the partnership develops, the tone and tempo will often be set by the default
priority in this instance trade. The future of the EU-Japan FTA negotiations will therefore
be a key determinant of the medium-term trajectory of this relationship.
The lead on deepening

defense and security
cooperation with Japan
that has naturally
been taken in Paris
and London should
be understood as
complementary, rather
than competitive, with
regard to the interests
of other European
member states and
institutions.
Success is most likely to result from the exploitation of natural overlaps in interests as much
as the exploration of new ones. If Japan can recognize the EU for what it is, rather than is not,
both sides will more readily identify affinities in areas such as capacity building, humanitarian
assistance, and disaster relief. There is, for example, considerable room for Japan to take
advantage of the EUs internal trend toward more civilian as opposed to military mandated
operations under CSDP, as well as for the EU to benefit from access to the growing options
available to Japan under the umbrella of non-combat military cooperation.
On the other hand, effective hard power partnerships are clearly more likely to develop with
Japan at the member state level. Here, differing capabilities and interests make it only natural
for a hierarchy of cooperation to emerge, led, in this instance, by France and the U.K.. So,
as Japan in 2011 began the phased easing of its long-standing ban on weapons exports, the
opportunities for technological cooperation and development here were bound to favor
momentum at the member state level, and amongst particular member states at that. Yet the
lead on deepening defense and security cooperation with Japan that has naturally been taken
in Paris and London should be understood as complementary, rather than competitive, with
regard to the interests of other European member states and institutions.
Lastly, it will be important to avoid an overcrowding of the agenda. Lessons need to be
learnt from the poor conversion rate of the unfocused EU-Japan Action Plan of 2001, which
highlighted more than 100 areas for cooperation. The emphasis must be on quality rather
than quantity. Ceremony and process have their place, but if not backed up by action, they risk
undermining progress by inadvertently highlighting gaps between rhetoric and reality.
In considering the potential for further cooperation then, how this is managed, is almost as
important as what those areas should be. The underlying ambition, though, surely has to be
to cultivate what Abe has previously called the reflex for cooperation across and between
all parts of government.56 Through sustained top-level political support and engagement, a
platform needs to be constructed for the mainstreaming of Japan-Europe cooperation in the
same way that Europe-U.S. cooperation, or Japan-U.S. cooperation is already mainstreamed
in the public discourses of the respective countries, albeit with a different content and to a
different degree.
Growing the Partnership Further: In What Directions?
What areas promise to most effectively catalyze this public record of common cause into one
of common and substantive action? Answers can be found at both the global and regional
levels.
56
Speech by Jos Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, EU-Japan: A Mature Relationship with Untapped Potential, Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, April 21, 2006.
22
The potential for greater cooperation on global challenges, in particular on as yet underregulated areas such as cyber and space where new international legal norms need to
be established and standards set is already apparent and needs further cultivation. This
harmonization up agenda should likewise include interests ranging from environmental
protection standards to issues of global health practices.
At the regional level, both powers should see a boosted bilateral partnership as a potential
network multiplier. Respective neighborhoods will inevitably remain the priority. In
Southeast Asia, Japan is increasingly active: as a trading partner, foreign director investor,
development donor, and even security provider, whether through arms sales or through its
capacity building programs such as the training it is providing to Indonesian, Malaysian,
and Filipino coastguards. Greater coordination with these activities should be of benefit to
an EU that is working hard to develop its partnership with ASEAN, and in whose emerging
economies European member states are increasingly engaged and invested. In Europes
Eastern neighborhood, Japan already plays a significant assistance role. In the Middle East and
North Africa, both sides have shared energy interests and face shared threats from violent
extremism. In sub-Saharan Africa, greater engagement with the EU will benefit Japan, not
only in terms of transferable experience and expertise but also as it seeks greater influence,
for example, over the Indian Ocean trading routes on which its economy, like others in East
Asia, is so dependent. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, both sides have an interest in responding
to the major Chinese New Silk Road initiative in a coordinated fashion. As China embarks
on its own transformative agenda for the region, there is a risk that the recent splits over
the AIIB foreshadow differences over how to work with the new financing mechanisms and
infrastructure plans that are being put in place by Beijing in a vitally important strategic
region.
The potential for

greater cooperation
on global challenges,
in particular on as
yet under-regulated
areas such as cyber
and space where
new international
legal norms need to
be established and
standards set is
already apparent.
Maritime Security
The recent history of Japans engagement in counter-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden
indicates potential for further cooperation in the broader maritime domain. Japans
contribution here has already increased markedly since its participation in these anti-piracy
endeavors was first legalized in 2009, with the Japanese Navy escorting thousands of vessels
safely through the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor. And while it might still
be politically easier for Japan to cooperate with the U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force as
opposed to the EU Atalanta mission, joint exercises, as previously noted, have now begun, and
JSDF capabilities have been deployed in tracking pirate ships subsequently intercepted by EU
vessels and suspects apprehended.57
Indeed, Japanese interest in capacity building as a theme, in Africa as a region, and in
bolstering its own maritime security capabilities for reasons closer to home, could make
it a yet more engaged partner as the issue of immigration from the failing states of North
Africa rises steadily further up political agendas inside the EU. The range of humanitarian
57
See, for example, the cooperation between the EU naval force French flagship, the FS Siroco, and the helicopter from the Japanese
Naval Destroyer, the JDS Samidare, on January 18, 2014, http://eunavfor.eu/eu-naval-force-french-flagship-siroco-and-japanesewarship-samidare-reinforce-successful-counter-piracy-cooperation-with-meeting-in-gulf-of-aden/.
23
and security measures required to deal with the repeated and growing numbers of migrant
drownings in the Mediterranean can only hope to have impact if they involve sustained
attention and resources, a serious state-building project across all of North Africa, and boosted
capacity at sea for search and rescue.58 There is certainly no shortage of joint work for Japan
and other European partners.
Japan is in the
market for increased
cooperation on antiterrorism, special
forces, and intelligence
cooperation, and
boosting Japanese
capacities here can
only be good for
Japans international
partners.
Anti-Terrorism Training
Greater Japanese activism further away from home will likely lead to increased cooperation
between Europe and Japan in areas such as anti-terrorism. As more JSDF personnel find
themselves exposed to conflict situations, or simply providing protection for Japanese
humanitarian workers engaged in capacity building or infrastructure projects in fragile states,
the possibilities for hostage crises increase. Already Japan and European hostages have been
held captive alongside each other, for example during the January 2013 al Qaeda attack on
the Tigantourine gas facility near In Amenas in Algeria, during which at least 39 foreign
hostages Japanese, British, French, Norwegians, Romanians, and Americans included
lost their lives. As Japans profile in international security affairs rises, the risk is that such
instances will increase (and even that the targeting will become more deliberate). Already,
like their European and U.S. allies, Japanese authorities have been forced to confront the sick
exhibitionist propaganda of the self-proclaimed Islamic State group, as Tokyo sought in early
2015, unsuccessfully, to avoid the beheading of two Japanese hostages in Syria.59 Even without
the imperative provided by its hosting of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, Japan is in the market
for increased cooperation on anti-terrorism, special forces, and intelligence cooperation, and
boosting Japanese capacities here can only be good for Japans international partners.
The Japan-NATO Relationship: Moving off the Starting Blocks
One further area that shows potential, if only because it remains somewhat noticeably
under-developed, is that of Japan-NATO cooperation. While progress has certainly been
made, the posting of one (albeit talented) individual to NATO HQ must be a start rather
than a reflection of the partnership. The ambition between these partners should be for
more military-to-military engagement, which is, after all, NATOs core business and which
has remained largely untouched in partnership cooperation to date, albeit for previously
understandable reasons.60 Greater participation of JSDF officers at the NATO Defense College
and on NATO pre-deployment courses (including for medical teams or civilian courses, which
is more palatable for Tokyos management of its domestic audience) can only help promote
the interoperability so crucial to NATOs effectiveness as well as the realization of the desired
seamless security cooperation between Japan and its NATO allies. More use could also be
made, in the future, of the Operational Capability Concept to promote interoperability and
58
These numbers have increased in the wake of the cessation of the Italian led Operation Mare Nostrum (itself prompted by the
drowning of 360 migrants off Lampedusa in October 2013), as well as in the face of worsening instability in countries such as Libya.
59
One propaganda video released by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group (ISIS) accused Abe of taking sides by pledging $200
million to countries fighting ISIS, demanding the equivalent in ransom money.
60
24
Interview with NATO HQ official, Brussels, December 10, 2014.
advance domestic transformations in military capabilities as well as thought given to visible

demonstrations of cooperation in respective neighborhoods.
Dealing with Assertive Powers
While Japan and Europe cooperate with Beijing across a host of different areas, and remain
committed to the cultivation of strong economic ties, adjusting to the rise of China and the
strategic challenges this poses is a matter of primary importance for both sides. The two
have found ways to share perspectives on the broader processes of navigating the economic,
political and military shifts in global power that are currently underway, without this
necessarily needing to take the form of active coordination of policy toward China.
But the developments of recent years have made the challenges even more acute. Chinese
military assertiveness in East Asia has been felt far more directly by Japan than by the
Europeans, who have at times sought to preserve a relatively distant stance on the substance
of disputes in the region, preferring to proffer a more general commentary on the rule of
law and its universal applicability. Russias behavior in Ukraine, however, while evidently
different in scale and nature from Chinas behavior in the South and East China Seas, has
presented Europeans with the broader problem of how to deter, and reverse, clear violations
of international legal norms. Any appearance of double-standards between the Asian and
European neighborhoods risks undermining not only the prospects for G7 unity, but also the
credibility of the underlying principles themselves.
Any appearance of
double-standards
between the Asian
and European
neighborhoods risks
undermining not
only the prospects
for G7 unity, but also
the credibility of the
underlying principles
themselves.
Japan and Europe would then be well served to undertake a wide-ranging and high-level set
of consultations on addressing these challenges in their respective neighborhoods. These
consultations should cover a range of issues including, but not limited to, sanctions and
their enforcement, preparation for contingencies, strengthening the economic and military
capacities of states to cope with coercive practices, and the bolstering of legal mechanisms to
deal with territorial disputes.61
The two sides efforts to maintain and reinforce standards, rules, and norms, are already
implicitly underway through the major trade plurilaterals, and the EU-Japan FTA itself. The
coordinated response shown in joint 2012 WTO case on rare earths is another example of
such activity and one that may yet need repeating in different guises at different times. But,
generally, trade negotiations are still liable to be subsumed by commercial rather than strategic
priorities particularly in the case of the EU-Japan FTA, which has not been accorded the
same kind of political importance as TPP or TTIP.
Growing the Partnership Further: What are the Mechanisms for Implementation?
EU-Japan summits will inevitably need to be part of the process of driving this agenda
forward, but additional momentum will also need to come from the major member states,
both individually and collectively.
61
Michito Tsuruoka, Mutual Support and Common Interests in Asia and European Neighborhoods, GMF Policy Brief, April 2015,
http://www.gmfus.org/publications/mutual-support-and-common-interests-asia-and-european-neighborhoods.
25
The Return of the G7
While the [G20]

may have served a
purpose during the
peak of the financial
crisis, its apparent
unwieldiness and
internal differences
have inadvertently
served once more to
highlight the strategic
advantages of a
smaller, more likeminded grouping.
In recent years, it had become fashionable to dismiss the G8 as an outdated institution,

increasingly unrepresentative of the worlds leading political and economic powers. It was first
supplemented by special invitees, and was then seemingly eclipsed by the G20. But while the
latter institution may have served a purpose during the peak of the financial crisis, its apparent
unwieldiness and internal differences have inadvertently served once more to highlight the
strategic advantages of a smaller, more like-minded grouping. To this end, Russias exclusion
from the G8 has only helped boost this grouping further. The April 2015 statement from
the G7 foreign ministers on maritime security was but one demonstration of the sort of
stronger collective stance that can now be taken.62 Furthermore, the grouping also offers an
environment in which matters of concern that are not on the formal agenda can and have
been discussed between leaders, such as perceptions of, and responses to, Chinese military
assertiveness. For some of the most sensitive issues, ranging from membership of the proposed
AIIB to reactions to the Ukraine crisis, the G7 has resumed its position as one of the principal
venues for deliberation, with the potential to once more become an important mechanism for
agenda-setting on trilateral cooperation.
Japan and Europe in the New Minilateralism
While Japan and Europe can certainly transact a consequential bilateral agenda (as this report
has laid out), docking with other minilateral efforts would provide another mechanism
through which certain elements of cooperation among like-minded countries could be
pursued even more effectively. Some of the most consequential U.S.-led efforts to build
partnerships between states in the Indo-Pacific region have been managed through support
for deepening contact and coordination among groups of friends and allies, such as Australia,
India, and Japan. Japans support for the incorporation of major European powers into
these regional arrangements, for example through joint naval exercises, could serve several
mutually beneficial purposes, including improving interoperability, broadening the coalition
of countries cooperating in Asia, and giving the Europeans a more active voice, stake, and
exposure to the Asian strategic context.
The Group that Dare not Speak its Name
U.S. efforts to coordinate Asia policy more effectively with Europe have been consistently
pursued through EU channels, but these have been usefully, if quietly, reinforced by
quiet gatherings of another group the quint. These meetings take place between the
United States and the European G7 members U.K., France, Germany, and Italy. Even
acknowledging the existence of the quint remains a matter of some delicacy, given its distinctly
non-communautaire quality, but the pragmatic need to find a mechanism that can get things
done on transatlantic Asia policy is one that applies equally to relations between Japan and
Europe. Without undermining the EU-level consultations, Japan and key member states
62
For the full statement, see http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2015/150415_G7_Maritime_

Security.html.
26
should explore similar informal processes that can help to support more effective use of the
formal ones that already exist.
The Potential Pitfalls that Lie in Wait
Moments of opportunities are often also, though, moments of risk. Despite the momentum
gathering, its supportive logic, and the activity described here, there are reasons why outcomes
might yet disappoint. A relationship with remarkable potential would, in this case, have to
settle for remaining a second-tier priority.
In the management of these obstacles, perceptions will matter as well as reality. If the Abe
administration perceives itself as trying to push for greater outreach offering up, for
example, the increased security cooperation long requested and their European partners
as being reluctant to truly engage, then this rejection will be keenly felt and the pendulum
swing on to other partners.63 Likewise, dealing with 28 partners will never be like dealing
with one ally. Differences will continue to be in evidence between those 28 member states as
to their prioritization of the Asian continent within their respective global agendas, as well
as with regard to their interpretations of Chinas growing centrality and the implications this
has for their policies on Asia, not to mention their basic resources available for pursuing such
engagements in the region.
Despite the
momentum gathering,
its supportive logic,
and the activity
described here, there
are reasons why
outcomes might yet
disappoint.
Further Japanese frustrations over Europes perceived slowness of reaction, including to events
on the ground in Asia, as well as ongoing European circumspection about its own positioning
in the region, are all but inevitable, and will need mature and clear-sighted management
on Tokyos part. Even as European and Japanese companies improve their cooperation
on sensitive areas of defense technology, there are likely to be continued strains over the
interpretation and future implementation of the EUs arms embargo on China. Criticisms of
inconsistency with regard to European approaches to the management of longer-term tensions
between regional security and economic interests will also persist.64
Similarly, there is a parallel risk that the reality of the Abe administrations proposed increased
international security contributions may fail to live up to expectations. One EU ambassador
described as tortuous discussions around Japanese participation on CSDP missions, noting
the extremely modest start already made, with, for example, the dispatch of computers to
Mali in support of an EU mission there.65 Expectations of what Japan can actually deliver
therefore need to be kept in check. If, for example, the EU wants a seat at the East Asia
Summit, the pressure should not be so much on Japan categorically to support its partners
63
While Tokyo is certainly focused on cultivating the confluence between European and Japanese interests, it would be a mistake not
to see this as part of a broader effort to expand Tokyos diplomatic outreach and networks. Considerable investments are also being
made in other priority bilateral relationships, for example through the announcement of a Special Strategic and Global Partnership
with India in September 2014, and a Japan-Australia Economic Partnership agreement, which entered into force on January 15, 2015.
64
Several Japanese interlocutors were, for example, critical of U.K. government handling of human rights issues in Hong Kong, or EU
handling of increased Chinese media censorship on the mainland.
65
Interview with EEAS official, Brussels, December 10, 2014.
27
ambitions much as this would be welcome but more on the EU itself to demonstrate its
sincerity and capabilities to its friends inside ASEAN.66
There is a general
problem in Europe that
the level of exposure to
Japan and the capacity
to contextualize
political developments
there is far less than
among comparable
policy elites in the
United States.
Furthermore, the challenges ahead of promoting substantive structural reform in Japan

the third arrow of Abenomics still have the capacity to sap the administrations political
will for reform efforts elsewhere. There is also the open question of the fate of ongoing
negotiations over a Japan-EU Free Trade Agreement, and how this fares relative to other free
trade agreements presently being negotiated by the two partners, most obviously TPP and
TTIP. Failure to secure an EU-Japan FTA cannot but undermine claims of like-mindedness,
with European partners likely to direct the blame at Japanese protectionist proclivities. And
while Abe certainly looks secure in his position until fresh elections are required in 2018,
should political instability or a change in political priorities return to Tokyo, it is
reasonable to expect some loss of momentum in Europe-Japan relations. In the same way, a
recurrence of the euro crisis, for example through a Greek exit, could reasonably be expected
to sap further the attention top-level European and member state politicians can dedicate to
Asia.
Perhaps most delicately, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the extent to which
Abe is successful in handling international perceptions of Japans approach to sensitive
historical issues will influence European calculations on the benefits and value of still-closer
engagement. This is not to deny widespread European appreciation and recognition for the
contribution to peace and international order that Japan has made in the 70 years since the
end of World War II. Nor is it to deny the deliberate politicization of many of the accusations
surrounding Japans management of aggressions long past, with Japans European partners
quick to recognize the countrys close relations with the majority of its war-time enemies and
colonies, including in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the pragmatic reality is that Japan is most
effective as a partner (for the United States as well as Europe) when it reliably and consistently
carries political heft in its own region. And here, concerns remain in some quarters that the
propensity of certain Japanese political leaders for revisionism will continue to provide a
stumbling block for driving through much desired regional rapprochements.67 In the absence
of such rapprochements, most obviously between Japan and South Korea, the underlying fear
is that, rather than serving as a network multiplier, too close a partnership with Tokyo might
actually risk undermining rather than adding value to European networks in the region.68
There is also a general problem in Europe that the level of exposure to Japan and the capacity
to contextualize political developments there is far less than among comparable policy elites
in the United States. While there are plenty of reasons that it is unrealistic to expect U.S.-Japan
66
To this end, the authors welcome the (belated) announcement of a dedicated EU ambassador to ASEAN, http://eeas.europa.eu/
statements/docs/2014/140924_01_en.pdf.
67
The authors of this report recall talking to a political director in the foreign office of a major European state shortly after Abes visit
to the controversial Yasukuni shrine in December 2013. Only days earlier, Japanese diplomats had met with this political director to
solicit support for Japans security ambitions and to ask for support rejecting any accusations of re-militarization. Whilst the political
director was clear about his support and sympathies for Japan, he was not the only interviewee to express frustration at the often
self-inflicted difficulties Japan presented as a political partner.
68
28
Interview with EEAS official, Brussels, December 10, 2014.
experiences to be replicable either in scale or nature within the Europe-Japan relationship,

there is certainly scope for greater investment in building a strong, sustainable strategic
community between the two sides.
Conclusion
The obstacles ahead are numerous and they emanate from actions, both real and perceived,
present and future. But as this report highlights, the opportunities resulting from the
successful navigation of these potential pitfalls are similarly clear. If strategic circumstances
permit a renewed sense of urgency and shared identity to hold, and the right political
investments can be made in this under-appreciated relationship, then the potential benefits
should be felt not just in Europe and Japan, but also by their partners in the promotion of
international order elsewhere in the world, including by their primary ally across the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans. The Japan-Europe relationship has for some time been a relationship on
the margins. The coming years should see it move a few steps closer to the center.
29
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WAKING UP TO GEOPOLITICS

A NEW TRAJECTORY TO JAPAN-EUROPE RELATIONS

Sarah Raine1 and Andrew Small2

Andrew Small is a transatlantic fellow with GMFs Asia Program.

While both Europe and

G7 Leaders Communiqu, June 2014, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-637_en.htm.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Past Efforts, Present Opportunities

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Partners of Choice, Just Not First Choice

A New Momentum to Japan-Europe Relations

Figures for February 2015.

See Tooling up, The Economist, September 1, 2014.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Europe Searches for Partners

Complementary step-changes can also be detected in a Europe in greater need now of

A more stable and

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Interview with Japanese academic, Tokyo, November 20, 2014.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Overlooked and Undervalued:

More than Meets the Eye

ne reason the Japan-Europe relationship has been traditionally undervalued is that

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Like [Japan and

Recent years have

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Japan and France have

Japan, like the United

Interview by Cameron with the Japanese Daily Yoimuri. Referenced in http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/apr/10/davidcameron-japan-defense-contracts.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

While France and

Kiichi Miyazawa, Japanese-German Center Berlin 20th Anniversary Festschrift, 2005.

NATO is, in many ways,

Interview with German academic, Berlin, May 5, 2015.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Japans support for

After the DPJ administration concluded an information-sharing agreement with NATO,51

NATO, NATO cooperation with Japan, April 22, 2013.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

The Relationship That Could Be,

Both sides will need

The lead on deepening

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

The potential for

Interview with NATO HQ official, Brussels, December 10, 2014.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

advance domestic transformations in military capabilities as well as thought given to visible

The Return of the G7

While the [G20]

In recent years, it had become fashionable to dismiss the G8 as an outdated institution,

For the full statement, see http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2015/150415_G7_Maritime_

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Interview with EEAS official, Brussels, December 10, 2014.

Furthermore, the challenges ahead of promoting substantive structural reform in Japan

Interview with EEAS official, Brussels, December 10, 2014.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

experiences to be replicable either in scale or nature within the Europe-Japan relationship,

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