Why the NATO-Japan pact is important
At the Vilnius summit, NATO signed a partnership agreement with Japan, the Indo-Pacific country most aligned with the Atlantic Alliance. Here are the details and analysts' opinions
The NATO summit in Vilnius marked a significant step forward towards the establishment of an alliance that jointly preserves security in the Atlantic and Pacific. In fact, the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand were present in the Lithuanian capital, the so-called Indo-Pacific Four (IP4), who have signed as many partnership agreements that open the door to a new era of cooperation straddling the continents and oceans. Let's see what the details of these agreements are, focusing on the most important one, the one signed between NATO and Japan.
The agreements with the Indo-Pacific Four
In addition to the historic decisions taken by NATO at the Vilnius summit regarding the security of Europe, the summit of 11-12 July marked an important stage in the cooperation between the Atlantic Alliance and its Indo-Pacific partners.
Indeed, the leaders of the so-called Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) had been invited to Vilnius, namely the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, his New Zealand colleague Chris Hipkins and the President of South Korea Yoon Suk-yeol.
Already included since the 1910s in NATO's cooperation mechanisms as its "global partners", these countries will now be involved in the activities of the Atlantic Alliance through the device called the "Individually Tailored Partnership Program" (ITPP). This is a scheme on the basis of which, as highlighted by the Japan Times , the IP4 will cooperate on an individual level with the various NATO members.
Japan pivot of the new NATO partnerships
Of the four NATO partners in the Indo-Pacific, the most important in terms of economic size, military capabilities and above all strategic position is undoubtedly Japan, which the Japan Times itself defines as "the most pro-NATO of the IP4".
The ITPP between NATO and Japan identifies three strategic objectives for the period 2023-2026 which include strengthening dialogue and consultations, promoting resilience and improving interoperability.
As highlighted by the Japan Times, there are sixteen areas within which the new cooperation program will be developed, which include space and cyber domain security, strategic communications, new technologies, climate change and the fight against disinformation.
The statements of Kishida and Stoltenberg
At the Vilnius summit there was a flurry of declarations that framed the new level of cooperation decided by NATO and Japan.
"No other partner is closer to NATO than Japan ," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, adding that Asia matters to Europe just as much as Europe matters to Asia.
Stoltenberg thanked Tokyo for its support of Ukraine and for being among the most active capitals in enforcing Western sanctions against Russia. He also expressed concern about China's massive weapons program and the expansion of its nuclear forces.
For his part, Kishida underlined how the new agreements are the necessary consequence of the change in the security landscape in the Indo-Pacific, a region which, from this point of view, is "inseparable from Europe".
Kishida then recalled the raison d'être of the partnership, noting how, with words reported again by the Japan Times , "Japan and NATO share the belief that any unilateral attempt to change the status quo through force or coercion will not be tolerated , regardless of where on the planet this occurs”.
Expert opinion
In its extensive report on the conclusions of the Vilnius summit, the Japan Times gives the floor to some experts to evaluate the scope of the new NATO-Japan partnership.
For Alessio Patalano, professor at the Department of War Studies of King's College London, we are facing a "crucial development in that, for the first time, there is a practical and profound path in which the security of the Euro- Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific".
“This new focus – adds Patalano – signals not only the existence of a closer relationship but also that the era of regionalism and globalization is giving way to that of the Atlantic-Pacific partnership”.
According to Jamie Shea, former NATO deputy assistant secretary general for emergency security challenges, the new partnerships baptized in Vilnius are important not only because they broaden the perimeter of consultations between allies but also because they open the door to a new phase of practical collaboration in fields defined by the ITPPs, allowing the contractors to obtain considerable advantages in terms of exchange of technological know-how and expertise.
In this regard, the researcher of the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies Paal Sigurd Hilde, underlines how the added value of the partnership will be constituted by the improvement of the interoperability of the weapon systems of NATO and Japan and therefore by the fundamental sharing of standards. In this sense, the Japanese arms industry will benefit in terms of opportunities for the sale of systems that are also attractive to other NATO partners.
Beijing's anger
Those who are not happy with the latest developments are obviously China, which has made its thinking known through a statement issued by the official Xinhua news agency.
As it often does, the agency does not report the ideas of the CCP leaders directly, but has them expressed through the voice of a self-styled expert, who on this occasion, coincidentally, is of Japanese nationality.
For Kazuteru Saionji, who is a visiting professor at Higashi Nippon International University, Japan's desire "to join the United States to contain China" is simply "silly".
Sinking the blow, the scholar admonishes Japan to "reflect on its history of militarism and aggression" by renouncing to cooperate closely with a body such as NATO which "is a product of the particular geopolitics of Europe during the cold war" and, above all, is an "instrument of war" moreover "obsolete".
In the eyes of the professor, Japan's move is nothing more than an attempt to meddle and procure undue interference in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as a way to arrest the irrepressible rise of China.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-e-importante-il-patto-nato-giappone/ on Mon, 17 Jul 2023 06:01:19 +0000.