The Limits of Japan-NATO Cooperation

Japan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have agreed to enhance cooperation in broad areas such as cyber defense and outer space to bring the Indo-Pacific and Europe closer together – with a more assertive China and Russia front of mind.

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg unveiled the Individually Tailored Partnership Program (ITPP) between Tokyo and the military alliance at the NATO summit held in Vilnius, Lithuania, from July 11 to 12. The ITPP covers the period from 2023 to 2026.

The five-page document identified three strategic objectives for collaboration between Japan and NATO, which are: (1) strengthening dialogue and consultations; (2) enhancing interoperability between security forces; and (3) bolstering their individual resilience in all stages from peacetime to crisis.

Specifically, it mentioned a total of 16 goals, including strengthening cooperation in fields such as cyber defense, strategic communication, emerging and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), space security, climate security, maritime security, arms control, and nonproliferation.

The previous Individual Partnership and Cooperation Program (IPCP), adopted in June 2020, had dealt with only nine priority areas for cooperation. The new ITPP thus expanded into new fields of cooperation to address global emerging security challenges, including space security and climate change.

This was the second year in a row that Kishida attended a NATO summit as one of the alliance’s Indo-Pacific partners, marking greater engagement by Japan in Europe as well as making NATO's involvement in the Northeast Asian region stronger.

That said, Tokyo and the military alliance will face one major challenge.

A major concern is that Japan needs NATO far more than NATO needs Japan. Tokyo is the only country in the world to face three significant security threats, having existing territorial disputes with China, Russia, and North Korea.

Kishida has repeatedly said Japan is facing the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II, and so it needs more security support from Europe and elsewhere. Tokyo is desperate for any military help to prepare for the worst. Japan still maintains a pacifist constitution, which formally renounces the nation’s right to engage in offensive military actions unless attacked.

As if to reflect such a severe security environment, recently in Japan, more than a few books and magazines about the Sino-Japan dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the Taiwan issue have been lined up in bookstores. There are also many television programs discussing these issues, especially on satellite TV.

Most recently, the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, a Japanese think tank, held a war games simulation for the third straight year to examine the challenges the Japanese government might face in the event of a Taiwan Strait conflict. The exercise, held in Tokyo on July 15 and 16, involved lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and former defense officials.

In comparison, Europe apparently has less of a sense of crisis about the Chinese military threat. The communique issued by NATO after the summit made direct references to China, in which it stated that China's “stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values.” But there’s a sense that the United States is driving NATO’s response to China, while Europe takes a more hesitant approach.

For example, when asked what the EU could do should China invade Taiwan, the European Union’s ambassador to Japan, Jean-Eric Paquet, said at a press conference in Tokyo on July 19 that the issue was “too hypothetical” and declined to comment on details.

But in Japan, many military experts and diplomats think such an invasion is becoming a very real possibility, and they strive to plan for the worst-case scenario.

Paquet also said that how China deals with Ukraine will decide the relations between China and Europe. But Japan has other concerns vis-a-vis both China and Russia. China and Russia are already strengthening their confrontational stance toward Japan, the United States, and South Korea, which advocate maintaining and strengthening a free and open international order based on the rule of law. They have held joint military drills in the waters near Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have shown solidarity during the war in Ukraine, emphasizing that there are “no limits” in China-Russia friendship.

In addition, there are differences in the sense of crisis among the NATO members themselves regarding the threat from China. U.S. President Joe Biden and Stoltenberg believe that dealing with the threat of China, which is deepening its ties with Russia and boosting its military power, is integral to NATO's security strategy. Meanwhile, countries like France, which has advocated strategic autonomy for decades, attach great importance to economic relations with China while maintaining a certain diplomatic distance from the United States.

At the latest NATO summit, talk of a possible NATO liaison office in Tokyo stalled due to French President Emmanuel Macron’s strong opposition. He stressed that NATO is supposed to focus on the North Atlantic region. However, he just may not want to risk provoking Beijing as France has strong economic ties with China.

In any case, it is very unlikely that NATO would look to establish any sort of military presence in the Northeast Asia region in the foreseeable future. NATO needs to form a consensus first by filling the perception gap toward a “China threat” between Japan and the alliance, and among member nations.