Tokyo Chancellor Olaf Scholz is shifting the focus of German Asia policy. The first trip to Asia of his term of office on Thursday will not take him to China, but to Japan. For German diplomats, this is a clear sign of Japan’s growing role in Berlin’s strategy.
Even the travel planning is a contrast program. Under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, was often just part of a larger Asia program. For a long time, Berlin focused primarily on Germany’s most important Asian market, China. Merkel traveled to China twelve times, always with a large business delegation in tow. In Japan, on the other hand, she only made five visits.
Now Scholz will only fly over the Middle Kingdom on the way to Japan. It is not yet certain when he will travel to China. According to coalition circles, the chancellor is already sending a signal.
The growing great power conflict between the Middle Kingdom and the USA and the Ukraine war are among the reasons. In view of the geopolitical conflicts, common interests make the export-oriented central powers Germany and Japan closer partners in discussions, values and strategy than before, especially when it comes to economic security.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
In contrast to the situation after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, this time Japan is a key part of the sanctions front, but like Germany is requesting an exception: oil and gas exports. According to coalition circles, Tokyo’s position comes closest to that of Europe. Two months before the G7 summit in Germany, Scholz now has the opportunity to coordinate further action in the Ukraine war with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Japan as a new security policy sparring partner?
In addition, according to diplomatic circles, it will be about supply chains, rising commodity prices and China’s more aggressive expansion in Asia. In addition, the federal government would like to strengthen the relationship with Japan with an important instrument of German foreign policy and start government consultations. These are regular meetings between the heads of government and several ministers. Germany currently only maintains them in Asia with China and India. The idea is that such a prominent political occasion puts pressure on the ministries of both countries to present concrete progress.
On the issue of sanctions against Russia, the German and Japanese positions are very similar.
(Photo: Reuters)
Japan is open to stronger bilateral relations, says security expert Yoko Iwama. “Japan and Germany have a special place in the free world,” explains the professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (Grips). As a security policy legacy of the lost Second World War, both countries would have hesitated for a long time to assume more military responsibility – Japan even more so.
Germany was already militarily involved in the disintegrated Yugoslavia and then in Afghanistan. Because of its pacifist constitution, Japan has so far only sent soldiers as construction workers. With the Ukraine war and growing tensions in Asia, these “civilian powers” now “are faced with an urgent need to change course,” says expert Iwama.
Both Japan and Germany now want to increase their military spending more quickly and are seeking more contact with one another than before. A bilateral 2+2 talk, i.e. a meeting of the foreign and defense ministers of both countries, took place for the first time last year. In addition, Germany sent the frigate “Bayern” to Asia to send a signal for free travel on all seas, including the South China Sea, which China illegally claimed. In return, Japan flew in a foreign minister for the first time this April to the most recent NATO conference.
Iwama believes that Scholz and Kishida could become security sparring partners in the future. “I think both gentlemen are currently looking for a new kind of identity and I hope there will be some kind of synergy between them.”
In a decoupled world, Japan’s economic importance for Germany is growing
However, Japan is also becoming more important for Germany in terms of economic strategy in a world that threatens to break up into different supply networks for key products such as batteries, chips and other electronic parts.
Experts consider Japan, along with Korea, to be one of the possible winners in the great power conflict. Japan-based economist Jesper Koll has long pointed out that the two high-tech nations are gaining traction as more trusted development and even manufacturing partners in a world where the West is no longer willing to rely on China for a supplier.
The USA has recognized this for a long time. The Japanese technology group Panasonic is the first battery partner of the Californian electric car manufacturer Tesla. In aircraft construction, Japanese companies are traditionally the main suppliers for the American Airbus rival Boeing. And South Korea’s powerful battery and chip industry is investing tens of billions of dollars in the US to show allegiance to Washington.
>> Read also: Distortions in world trade: Ports in Shanghai and Hamburg become bottlenecks
After his meeting with the Japanese head of government, Scholz will give a 20-minute keynote speech at the German-Japanese Dialogue Forum of the German Chamber of Commerce in Japan, the content of which is eagerly awaited.
Japan’s economy and politicians are well connected in Asia. Many German companies based in Japan therefore use their branch in Japan to gain access to the organizations of Japanese groups in Asia.
The outsourcing of Japanese factories to China could be partially reversed, also thanks to the new Asian free trade area RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), which came into force at the beginning of the year. For Ong Siew-wei, head of Schenker-Seino Japan, the Japanese arm of the German logistics company Schenker, the trade association will transform the region into a borderless factory that can mitigate the consequences of geopolitical conflicts. Japan’s government has been subsidizing factories to leave China since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
In any case, there is room to strengthen German-Japanese economic relations: Little Switzerland has invested more in Japan overall than the European export champion. And in the German export rankings in 2020, South Korea was just ahead of its Japanese neighbor, which was twice the size.
Nuclear disarmament as a common theme?
For Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, there are also other reasons to seek proximity to Germany. On the one hand, after Germany, Japan will be the host country of the G7. In addition, Scholz’s 64-year-old peer comes from the city of Hiroshima, which was the first place in the world to be wiped out by an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. Nuclear disarmament is therefore an affair of the heart for the Japanese, explains Iwama from the think tank Grips.
The Japanese prime minister has been in office since last year.
(Photo: AP)
She believes that Kishida sees the German government as a possible ally on this issue, especially ahead of Japan’s G7 presidency next year. Kishida wants to hold the summit in Hiroshima. “If he did that, he would need some kind of political message for nuclear disarmament.” According to Iwama, Germany could help draft a new, well-fortified message of peace for the new age.
Other talking points on which Japan is banking on a deal with Germany are climate change and energy. The G7 countries would have to find an alternative to the larger group of G20 in order to work with the developing and emerging countries working together on these issues, says Iwama. Because the group doesn’t work anymore. “Kishida wants to be a bridge between Asia and Europe in this process,” believes the foreign policy expert. He is therefore planning a trip to Asian countries in the coming week, which could be followed by a visit to Europe.
Collaboration: Thomas Sigmund
More: The sharp fall of the yen puts Japan’s monetary policy in question