Japan, EU sign defense pact spurred by threats from the PRC, Russia
Voice of America
The European Union and Japan reached a security and defense agreement amid escalating tensions with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and concerns about Beijing’s support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya announced the partnership in November 2024 in Tokyo during the inaugural strategic dialogue.
“We live in a very dangerous world,” Borrell said. “Given the situation in both of our regions, this political framework deepens our ability to tackle emerging threats together.”
He described the security pact as “historical and very timely,” noting it is the 27-member EU’s first such agreement with an Indo-Pacific country.
Under the EU-Japan Security and Defense Partnership, the two parties will promote “concrete naval cooperation,” including through joint exercises and port calls, which may include “mutually designated third countries,” according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
It also says the EU and Japan will discuss “the development of respective defense initiatives including exchange of information on defense industry-related matters.”
Katsuya Yamamoto, program director and senior research fellow of security studies at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said: “By repeating joint training, cruising, port visit, cross-boarding in peacetime, our like-minded countries can continuously make it known to China and the surrounding countries that the European fronts and the Indo-Pacific fronts are standing together.
“It will make China understand that this is not a regional security challenge, but a worldwide” one, he said.
Beijing and Moscow have drawn closer since the West cut ties with Russia over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In September 2024, the two regimes held joint military drills near Japan.
In an August 2024 visit to Taipei, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba voiced concern that the PRC could invade Taiwan as Russia did with Ukraine. Beijing claims the self-governed island as its territory and threatens to annex it by force.
Wei-Hsiu Huang, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the PRC’s activities in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are factors in the enhanced EU-Japan cooperation.
“The future direction of security cooperation between Japan and Europe will be very broad, and it will not be limited to the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, North Korea and Russia,” he said.
Meanwhile, top EU and South Korean officials strongly condemned North Korea’s troop deployment to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine and agreed to discourage further military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, The Associated Press reported.
North Korea’s deployment threatens to expand the war and has raised concerns in South Korea that Moscow could reward Pyongyang by supplying the regime with sophisticated weapons technology or providing support during a potential conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
