Former Japanese PM welcomed the creation of Aukus in the midst of an ‘increasingly severe’ security environment



Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe at campaign event last month. Abe says Japan should work with like-minded countries to maintain a ‘free and open’ Indo-Pacific. Photograph: Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO/REX/Shutterstock
Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent
@danielhurstbne
Fri 19 Nov 2021 05.13 GMT

Japan should seek to work with Aukus members on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, long-serving former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has said.

Japan was excluded when the leaders of Australia, the US and the UK announced their new security partnership with much fanfare in mid-September, but Abe believes it is “extremely important” for Tokyo to find ways to collaborate with its friends.

In a virtual address to the Sydney Dialogue on Friday, Abe noted that the Aukus deal was broader than its initial project of delivering at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.


Without directly mentioning China, he said the regional security environment had become “increasingly severe”.

Abe said the concept he had championed while in office – a “free and open Indo-Pacific” – could only be achieved if like-minded countries remained engaged in the region in the long-term.

“From this point of view, I welcome the creation of Aukus,” said Abe, who was prime minister from 2006-07 and again from 2012-20.

“It is extremely important to promote multilayered efforts for peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific region. I think that Japan should engage in the cooperation under the Aukus in such areas as cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.”

Abe, who has been a strong backer of deepening the Quad grouping among Japan, Australia, the US and India, did not elaborate on what that cooperation would look like. But he argued that external cyber threats were “growing day by day”.


Abe’s view is in line with that of the Japanese ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, who hinted Japan was looking for avenues to participate in Aukus initiatives such as on AI and cyber.
“We have been told there are some instances or areas where Aukus members may need Japanese cooperation and participation and we are more than willing to do our contribution,” Yamagami told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute podcast last week.

Japan has broadly welcomed Aukus as a sign of “strengthening engagement in the Indo-Pacific region”, rather than wholeheartedly backing the nuclear-propelled submarines aspect.

Michito Tsuruoka, an associate professor at Keio University in Japan, noted the use of nuclear propulsion for military vessels “remains controversial in Japan” and it was unclear whether the US would actually agree to further share its sensitive technology.

The idea of Japan itself acquiring nuclear-powered submarines was supported by two unsuccessful contenders in the leadership contest for the ruling Liberal Democratic party in September, but the winner, prime minister Fumio Kishida, was sceptical.

In an article for The Diplomat this week, Tsuruoka argued it was “no coincidence that the three allies of Aukus are the core of the already exclusive Anglo-Saxon intelligence-sharing framework of the Five Eyes”.

“Despite the fact that intelligence cooperation between the United States and Japan has developed over the years, particularly regarding China and other related issues in the Indo-Pacific, the overall level of trust in the intelligence domain is still said to be inadequate,” Tsuruoka wrote.

“Aukus has made this reality visible yet again. Fully aware of this, there is a sense of detachment regarding Aukus in the foreign and security policy community in Japan.”

Amid increasing strategic rivalry with China, Japanese officials have expressed an interest in Japan one day becoming a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance – which currently includes the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand.

However this idea is not seen as likely to be achieved in the near future.

Abe said on Friday there was “no doubt that the Indo-Pacific region has been and will continue to be the source of global economic growth of the world economy”.

But he also described the largest challenges facing the countries of this region as being “maintaining a free and open order, such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and free trade, for years to come”.

Japan and Australia should elevate their security and defence cooperation to a new level, he said, including by increasing the complexity and sophistication of joint exercises.

The Quad countries should also work on building reliable supply chains.

“Semiconductors and critical minerals are key bases that serve as the backbone of a country, and we should prevent and reduce the risk of over-dependence on a particular country as for the supply of these materials,” Abe said.

The UK’s outgoing Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, has previously given an upbeat assessment of whether countries like Japan, Canada and New Zealand could eventually join Aukus, saying the partnership was “not designed to be in any way exclusive”.

“I absolutely know that the architects of it reckon that if it could be made more inclusive, if there were opportunities there, then that’s the direction of travel it would go,” Carter told a Center for a New American Security event last month.

But the Australian foreign minister, Marise Payne, responded to Carter’s comments by saying there were “no plans for the expansion of Aukus itself at this stage”.

At Senate estimates, Payne said the three Aukus members would continue to pursue a wide range of security and defence cooperation activities with like-minded partners. “I think there’s plenty of potential for initiatives under Aukus to naturally intersect with those other cooperative relationships,” Payne said.


https://www.theguardian.com/australi...ays-shinzo-abe

NZ, Jepang nyaman dengan AUKUS.